


black coffee

by lenticularprint



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Genre: Aug Kink, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-05 08:14:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18362105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lenticularprint/pseuds/lenticularprint
Summary: Recuperation after the Orchid is slow. And when he says “slow,” he means “bloody agonising and frustrating as hell.” Not that he says that, especially when he sends messages to Mac asking if he can at least do damn paperwork at home, he’s not an invalid.When Mac agreed to send a parcel, he expected a courier. Something quick and impersonal. Instead, when he answers the buzz of the intercom, he gets a familiar rough-as-gravel voice. “Macready sent me, sir.”Shit.





	black coffee

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a 100-word drabble. Yeah. I can only thank a bunch of people at my favourite Deus Ex server, but I have to mention [Masu_Trout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout), who was patient, funny and endlessly encouraging while I totally ripped off [Shadowboxing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16575710). Seriously, this fic owes that one a huge debt, and if you like some of the tropes going on here, I can't recommend it enough.

Jim wakes up with a slamming headache, the knowledge he should be dead, and a dark figure asleep in the chair next to his hospital bed.  
  
He blinks, and stares blearily for a moment at Ad - Jensen, curled in that awkward way of too much man and too little cramped hospital armchair: listing to the side, head against his shoulder, elbow against the armrest, totally out of place in the brightness of the room.  
  
Maybe when someone saves your life, they're meant to become... different. More heroic-looking, more obvious. But Jim's had enough close shaves to know that it doesn't work like that. Jensen's got a new cut on his cheek, and that precision-styled hair is starting to sag, awkwardly flattened in the weirdest places. He looks pale and exhausted, with a darkness under his eyes and his scars standing out starkly, eyelashes dark lines against his cheeks. Even in sleep, he shifts and frowns like something's worrying him - or chasing him. Jim notices belatedly that under the fancy coat, there isn't a tacvest; he frowns at what looks like a worn shirt, black once but going grey.  
  
Jensen doesn't look like a marble statue. He looks the most human Jim's ever seen him. Something aches in Jim's chest, and he can't entirely blame that one on the Orchid.

The fact his throat's killing him, however? That one's a different matter. He coughs without meaning to, and it feels like someone’s trying to give him a tonsillectomy. With a straight razor and no anaesthetic.  
  
Adam startles awake with the smallest questioning noise, chair creaking. It doesn't look comfortable. He grimaces, blinks fuzzily, and then his eyes settle on Jim. Something like surprise crosses his face. He almost looks like he's wondering whether to bring the shades back up. "Hey," he says, in a voice like tired charcoal.  
  
Jim manages, "I…"

 _Fuck_ , that hurts. His eyes settle on the water and cups next to his bed. He tries to sit up, and -  
  
When he can focus through the pain again, there's a black metal hand in front of him, and it's holding a plastic cup, half-filled with water.  
  
He takes the water with trembling hands and tries not to bolt it down. Humiliation at his own weakness is trying to creep in, but it’s crushed for the moment by an overwhelming… relief. If you’d told him a few months ago he’d be glad to be alive, he’d have laughed bitterly,  but now...

"Adam," he manages, roughly.  
  
Adam tilts his head, expectant. That silent concern again. Those earnest, unnatural eyes.  
  
"How long... how long have you been here?" Jim knows full well he sounds like shit, but at least the poison hasn't destroyed his vocal cords.  
  
"Couple hours," Adam says.  
  
Jim's certain he's lying, but lets it go.  
  
"I should - " Jensen moves, starts to stand.  
  
Jim's hand for once obeys him. It lands on Adam's arm, weak but there.  
  
Adam pauses, and looks at him, eyes wide and far greener than he imagined. It startled him, back in that kitchen. Inhuman, but... real. And so expressive it instantly became obvious why Adam covers them. Now they're worried, and underneath it, wary.  
  
"You saved my life," Jim says.  
  
He doesn't know how his hand slips down Adam's arm until it rests on an augmented palm. Adam's fingers twitch, briefly, carbon-black fingers curling against his and staying there. Adam swallows, eyes catching his -  
  
They both move away at the same time. It's hell on Jim's aching body, but there's something tense and almost pained in Adam's eyes.  
  
Jim says, "You should at least get a raise." It feels too hasty, like he’s papering over something. A crack he didn’t even know was there.  
  
Jensen snorts. "Yeah." He looks aside. "I'll, uh... I'll get someone. Let them know you're awake." Then he's unfolding himself from that cramped chair and heading out of the room, and Jim hears the quiet _snikt_ of eye shields.

It might be unusual, but he knows what that is: Adam’s afraid. What he doesn’t know is why.

 

 

 

Recuperation is slow. And when he says “slow,” he means “bloody agonising and frustrating as hell.” Not that he says that, especially when he sends messages to Mac asking if he can at least do damn _paperwork_ at home, he’s not an invalid.

His hands were the first to go. He looked at the tremors and thought, _God, no._ Some nerve damage had to be inevitable, with how fast that stuff worked, but this was… Even if he never picked up a rifle again, even if he’d been wondering about retirement, it was meant to be a _choice._ It wasn’t meant to be having the end spelled out for him while he ground his teeth and stared at the ceiling and wished, more than anything, that he could train. Or while he looked at his twitching fingers and screamed at his body to fucking _work._ He thought he was above begging at the start, but in the privacy of his head, not so much.

He was ready to go, in that kitchen. Resigned. He wasn’t ready for this.

He hasn’t felt like this since he was twitching and sweating at boot camp. Or since the injuries that nearly ended his career: the ones where he spent months in disbelieving, shell-shocked pain, wondering how it could ever be this bad, wondering why the hell he ever enlisted and then feeling ashamed of himself for thinking it.

_It’s about fifty-fifty. We’ve never encountered this before, and we’re still studying it. All the longer-term cases are…_

_Dead?_

_Yes, well. Some neuropathy is inevitable. Some is likely to be permanent. All we can hope is that that’s a small amount. Your body has been under deep and prolonged stress, Mr. Miller. It may take some time for motion and ability to return._

_So I’ll never make a full recovery?_

_I wouldn’t put it quite that way._

_Will I be able to do my_ job?

Turns out his hands are also the first thing to come back.

At some point, the tremors don’t stop, but they become… less. Less significant, less painful. The pain’s there, but it’s more of a background hum than something that keeps seeping into every nerve and throwing him off any time he tries to do something. Still hurts like hell, still takes him too long to do anything, and he still gets the shakes. But… they’re less bad. Feels more surmountable. He works on writing, on flexing them. Keeps nagging Mac every so often.

Eventually, he gets, _It’ll take a while to put a package together. I’ll send it over_ _sometime_ _in the next two days._

He almost types back something along the lines of _The next two days? What, you think I won’t be doing anything and I can just wait around?_ And then he realises that that’s exactly what he’s stuck doing. Fuck.

So he takes what he can get, and sends a _yeah thanks._ Then he runs his hands down his face, and pretends not to notice that they’re trembling.

He blames the pain. Or the tiredness. Or his own bloody arrogance.

He knows what he looks like. He can drag a brush through his hair and he’s just about staved off a beard, but a close shave when he’s like this is asking for too much. He went for a shirt that was soft and worn; that wasn’t going to be hell on his skin when he already feels like shit and every nerve seems to be oversensitised. Some days he could at least do basic exercises, but this isn’t one of them. He’s standing up straight and his mind’s working well enough to nag at him for not doing more. He’ll take it.

He blames this entire bloody situation for forgetting.

He expected a courier. Something quick and impersonal. Instead, when he answers the buzz of the intercom, he gets a familiar rough-as-gravel voice. “Macready sent me, sir.”

He imagines how that conversation could’ve gone down, and sighs. Then he presses the button and buzzes Jensen through. “Right. Come up.”

Jensen raises an eyebrow when Jim opens the door. “Sir.”

Jim looks into impassive gold eyeshields and realises belatedly, again, that he probably looks a state. He thinks he used to be decent at professionalism once. He runs a hand through his hair and only stops himself grimacing because he has company. “Jensen.”

“Macready wanted me out of his hair. He told me to give you these.” Adam holds out a courier’s box, fingers shining black against the white cardboard. Paper’s more inconvenient, but it’s also more secure, these days. Underrated, in his opinion.

Jim takes it. “Thanks.”

And then he sees the rain in Adam’s hair and hears the patter of it outside. There are droplets caught between the fussy spikes of it, and some stupid part of him wants to brush them away. There’s the slight smell of damp leather, too, and drops disrupt the floral pattern along Adam’s shoulders as they run. It’s… not quite dandyish, but it’s a statement. Speaks of someone who pays attention, likes to look after himself. Like he suspected.

He squints at that, and before he can stop himself he says, “New coat?”

Adam glances downwards. “Uh… old one, actually.”

With that quieter note in Adam’s voice, he thinks he knows when from. He suddenly tries to imagine Adam as a head of security, heading up his own team, even. Or as a cop, before all this. He can see it sometimes. He gets the feeling Adam was different, before Prague. Smiled more, maybe. Before the augs and whatever the hell happened in Detroit. Sure, he has the edges of it and he has the files, but that’s not everything. Black and white text can’t tell you someone’s nightmares.

“Right.” His fingers tense on the box, and to distract himself, he says, “Is this keeping you from work?” _Am I?_ he hears so clearly that Adam must hear it too, and he wants to kick himself. Jesus, it really has been too long without seeing another soul.

Tilting his head, Adam says, “I’m pretty much through the pile.” There it is again, that tentative warmth. Like he’s trying to figure out whether he’s allowed to be human. Jim suddenly wishes, fiercely, that the shades were off.

He makes a quick show of checking the window again. “The weather’s vile. Want a cup of coffee?” Not the kind of thing he’d usually ask someone in the office. But no-one else in the office saved his life.

That half-second of assessment, that uncertainty – then Adam says, “I’d appreciate that.”

Jim steps back, and then Adam’s slipping into the apartment.

Adam’s different here. Still with those loping too-calm strides, that silent thoughtfulness, but out of the office, without a desk or orders between them… when he forgets not to, Adam takes up space. In person he’s always a little taller, more solid than Jim remembers. He forgets how much Adam folds himself inwards, how much of the teeth-bared cockiness is Adam consciously showing he’s human. As if six-two of milspec augs and quiet, repressed anger could be anything but intimidating.

It’s lucky that Jim’s never been easily intimidated.

Adam’s never seemed like much of a fidgeter, but his hands are in his pockets, and he takes in Jim’s apartment with that guarded curiosity – his eyes are moving under the shades, but Jim can only tell from the slightest headtilt he gets sometimes - until Jim reaches out a hand and says, “Hang your coat up?”

Adam shrugs it off and passes it over. “Thanks.”

When Jim turns back, his step almost stutters at the sight of bright green eyes. Still oddly human, even with the colour and the hint of gold in their irises, and… Adam’s eyes flick away just a second too late. Watching him and pretending not to. He wonders if he looks that bad.

He doesn’t let anything cross his face. Instead he grabs two mugs and queues it up.

God, Adam looks tired. Doesn’t he have some kind of auged-up metabolism? Enhanced stamina? Still, he looks tired most of the time, and this is far from the worst state Jim’s seen him in. Maybe neither of them has been sleeping well since London. But he’s far from the shadow Jim saw in the hospital room. And even exhausted, Adam still looks like… Adam. Probably physically impossible for him to look like shit.

For a few seconds there’s silence except for the racket of the coffee machine, and then Adam says, “You’re still working on the Berlin case?”

Jim snorts. “Putting a stamp on stuff that’ll get thrown in a filing cabinet.” Maybe he says it because Adam’s too quiet, and even if he’s not saying it, Jim can feel the worry. It comes off Adam in spades.

“Right,” Adam says. Again, the questions are hovering there, unasked.

“I can do _filing_ , Jensen.” He looks over his shoulder, and he’ll admit that it’s more of a glare.

“Never said you couldn’t.” But there’s still that cautious curiosity in his tone. Adam rubs his hand over his mouth. “They sent you to PT?”

Never the kind of question Adam would have asked, before London. Before Jim slipped up and let himself be human. (But that’s not true, is it? Jim remembers the quiet, concerned _You all right?_ after Ruzicka, the moments Adam took. It was just… different, before. Before, Adam didn’t know half the answer.) Jim grunts. “They didn’t have to do much.” He doesn’t know what makes him say more. Usually he’d have batted aside the question and left it at that. “It was the fine motor control they were worried about. They sent me home with a few exercises.”

“Yeah.” Adam’s voice is soft, and the word’s more of a sigh. “They always look easy, until you’re tired and they mount up.”

...Oh.

Jim can’t help it: he looks back at Adam, and then those black metal hands, flexing slightly in Adam’s discomfort. Adam looks like he’s regretting saying anything – hell, more like he wants to cloak and sneak out the fire escape - so Jim speaks. “I’ve been getting sick of writing my own name five times fast. Or at least that’s what it feels like they are.”

The corner of Adam’s mouth tilts. That brief half-smile. Jim always took it for a smirk, before, but without the shades it’s softer. Looks more like commiseration. Maybe it’s just that without them, Adam looks softer in general, especially with the hairgel half-washed out and a warm-looking black jumper. “Gets worse if you don’t do them.” Adam looks away, eyes skating over the walls, over the pictures Jim suddenly wants to cover or explain. “It’s… repetition. Learning the pathways.” Adam tilts his head. “I guess it’s different with nerve damage. I don’t know.”

“Damned if I do either.” Jim pours out black coffee. Puts in five sugars for Adam and only a little milk for himself. And he makes the motion as smooth as he can with his tiredness and his now-less-fucked-up hands. “Didn’t the Sentinel help?” He passes over Adam’s mug.

Adam takes it, and then somehow Jim’s leaning against the counter with Adam doing the same, a foot or two away, elbow on his kitchen counter. Adam takes a sip and then raises his eyebrows, surprised. Looks at Jim again. “...Thanks.”

Jim grunts. “I’m busy, not blind. Admin keep wondering how we’re getting through so much sugar. There’s been a spike since we took on our newest agent.”

Adam grins into his coffee, probably with something sarcastic ready to launch -

“Drink your syrup and stop avoiding the question.”

Adam takes a good swig - Jim tries not to wince, because Jesus, the man’s teeth aren’t augmented, as far as anyone can tell – before he says, “They had to break it in, they couldn’t activate it all at first. I got the immune system and some of the faster healing, but...” He sucks in his cheeks, just slightly, and raises a brow.

“Pain makes you tired,” Jim says. He didn’t mean to.

He didn’t mean it to be an answer, either, but Adam nods. “I… wasn’t always like this.”

Jim says, “I know. I assume it took a lot of work.” Silence falls, and Jim leans back against the counter, trying not to sigh. Then it hits him. “I – _Shit._ I didn’t mean to… It’s not the same.”

Adam snorts.

Jim glares back, because he’s _trying,_ damn it. Even if it’s trite and stupid. “What?”

“Was kind of enjoying someone looking at me like I wasn’t the crazy aug.” There’s something bright and assessing in Adam’s eyes, something behind the false amusement.

Jim shifts under the weight of it, scratching at the back of his neck. Fuck. Maybe the shades were easier. Then he sighs, puts his mug aside, and stares into those unnaturally green eyes. One thing he knows – they both know – is how not to back down. “You know that’s not how I think of you.”

Adam huffs a laugh, but his smile is just a baring of teeth, and he looks at the wall.

“ _Adam_. I’m not Mac. And even he’s being... less of an arse these days.”

Adam’s laugh this time is more genuine. “I know.” When he looks at Jim, there’s something soft in his face. “You act like I’m...” He swallows.

“A good man? You are.” Jim tries not to show his anger. Not at Adam. It shouldn’t have to be said, but in a world like this… Adam couldn’t even finish the bloody sentence. Jesus, and he wonders why Delara keeps dragging him into her office.

“Was gonna say a good agent.” Adam looks away, jaw working. There’s the slightest bright metallic noise as he drums his fingers on the mug. He ducks his head. Then he raises the mug. “And this is good coffee.”

It’s Jim’s turn to be amused, now. “That’s a decent brewer, not me. You saved my life. It’s the least I can do.”

“Part of the job,” Adam says, into his coffee.

“No it wasn’t. I told you to leave me.” Jim’s voice is sharper than he meant it to be. This would be easier in the office, not when he looks like shit and Adam’s in his home, drinking his coffee and watching him warily.

“That wasn’t happening.” It’s quiet, but firm. Immoveable, the way Adam always is when he’s got a crazy idea in his head.

“It wasn’t your call. I gave you an _order.”_

“And I disobeyed. You gonna fire me?” Adam’s chin is high, and his face is set. He looks, utterly, like a goddamn cop. _Yes sir_ when it’s actually _fuck you._

“I… _No._ And not in my goddamn _apartment,_ what kind of man do you take me for?”

Adam just tilts his head. Challenging, but maybe there’s something a little amused in it. Looks different without the shades. “I don’t know. You do all your debriefs in your kitchen?”

“Do you ignore all your direct orders?” Jim counters, bluntly.

He doesn’t know which one of them breaks first. All he knows is that he glances aside with a huff of laughter, and when he looks back, Adam’s doing the same.

Then it fades, and Adam’s eyes search his. There it is again, that curiosity. That wariness, the same way it was there in the hospital.

“How long had you been there?” Jim asks, because he has to. “In the hospital?”

Adam’s jaw works. “Not that long.” He takes another drink of coffee.

Jim doesn’t know why he wants to die on this hill. “How long?”

“About eleven hours.” Adam’s eyes meet his and then skate away again. “I slept through a lot of it.”

Jim exhales. “Jesus. You didn’t have to - ”

“Yeah, I did. It would’ve been pointless saving you if you’d bled out anyhow.”

“Adam...” Jim swallows.

“You still trying to make me regret it? Because that’s not gonna happen.”

“I...” Maybe. “No.”

Adam’s eyes are sharp, and they see exactly what he isn’t saying. Adam nods thoughtfully, and says, “Good. I’d do it again.”

Jim glares into his coffee. “Don’t. We can have a disciplinary when I don’t feel like warmed-up shit.”

Adam tilts his head. “You look pretty good, considering.”

Jim raises a brow.

And they both realised how that could be taken at the same time, from the looks of it. Swallowing, Adam says with a tilt of his head, “I mean, the last time I saw you, you were dying.”

Jim snorts. “Yeah. There’s that.” He pauses. “Have you been properly checked out since London?”

The wariness is instantly back in Adam’s face. “Went to an aug specialist when we got back. And it’s been almost two months.”

“I don’t mean them.” Sighing, Jim taps his own temple. “I mean _here._ It was a hell of a mess. Even if you did prevent mass casualties. Christ, I still don’t know how you did that.”

Jensen looks levelly back. “Refusing to follow orders.”

Jim steels his jaw. “You’re avoiding the question.”

“You didn’t ask one.”

Jim remembers the thought he had not two minutes after meeting Jensen. God _fucking dammit,_ a man almost as stubborn as he is, and that would almost impress him if it didn’t make him want to kick something.

Adam says, with the slightest hint of disbelief, “You’re... asking if I’m all right?”

“Yeah, I am. Just because I’m a fucking invalid...” Jim mutters.

“Not what I said. I just… I’m fine.” Adam’s tone is as defensive as expected.

“You’re the reason most of us got out of there alive. The least I can do is ask. It was a hell of a day.”

Adam laughs, rough and under his breath. “I think you had it worse.” He drains his coffee.

Jim finds that he’s trying not to watch Adam’s throat work; there’s a hint of something black at the neck of Adam’s jumper, when his head’s tilted like that, and it must be another augmentation, or some kind of connector...

“I should go,” Adam says.

“Sure,” Jim says, and then, “I’ll get your coat,” because what else _can_ he say? _Christ, don’t leave me alone to stare at four walls and try in vain to lift weights again?_

Jim does get the coat, and shows Adam out like this hasn’t been a deeply odd experience. Not bad-odd, but… odd. Adam doesn’t talk about the augs, and he doesn’t take the shades down. And he doesn’t take off that coat and sit in Jim’s kitchen and crack wise.

“Macready said I should come collect on Friday.” Adam raises a questioning brow.

“Yeah, that’s fine for me. He sending you on grocery runs, too?” It slips out. And Jim’s somehow leaning a little on the doorway, like he’s just had a friend round and not a high-priority augmented asset.

Adam’s mouth twitches as he turns. But Adam hesitates in the doorway, looks back. “...Thanks. For the coffee, and for asking. About London, I mean.”

And then, before Jim can try to work out a response to that, there’s a trenchcoated shadow heading down the hall, dark and out of place against the modern white walls.

 

 

 

 

 

The dreams come less often, these days, but less often isn’t never.

Sometimes it’s Marchenko’s hands round his throat. Sometimes he thinks it’s the Orchid’s itself. He scrabbles, tries to see what’s at his back, and he can never can. He tries to kick out and can’t get in a hit, do anything, _breathe_. He’s stuck, arms held behind his back and his lungs screaming for air with the world darkening and slipping away from him, no matter how much he scrabbles for it.

Sometimes he wakes sweating, choking on nothing, and trying not to throw up. Sometimes that attempt fails and he ends up staggering to the bathroom.

Those nights, he usually ends up sitting and cleaning his guns, because it’s easier than sleep.

Every time he’s back again in that fucking grey room, staring at the same grey wall until his eyes water and knowing exactly what’ll happen. It isn’t a dream, it’s the end of his life. And this time, he knows it’ll stick.

Less often isn’t never.

This time, the room’s bright. Clinical. He tilts his head. That’s new. False hope, maybe. He wonders when it’ll change.

But now he’s starting to recognise it. The hospital, and his throat’s killing him. He sits up and tries to think.

And beside him, there’s - oh.

Those black and gold fingers brushing his own, warm and tentative.

Except this time he doesn’t let go and laugh it off. He takes Adam’s hand and with just enough strength, he tugs.

The bed dips under the weight of Adam’s knee - and then Adam’s in front of him, breath and warmth, watching him steadily.

Adam reaches out, slowly, eyes on his. Expectant. Jim inhales sharply when Adam’s hand brushes up his neck, feeling like it’s leaving sparks in its wake. Smooth metal fingers reach his jaw, stroke under his chin, and then Adam’s cupping his face...

He leans into it. It’s so soft. Too soft. He never thought he’d have this, anything like this, again. He doesn’t deserve it. He shouldn’t be tilting his face into Adam's hand, closing his eyes.

Adam’s thumb rubs briefly over his mouth. The briefest disbelieving pause, an inhale, and then -

Under the facial hair, Adam’s lips are soft. He tastes like coffee, smells maybe a little like ozone and leather and expensive shampoo. Jim breathes it in and kisses back. Pulls Adam closer, knuckles whitening. He feels Adam shift, there’s a rustle of fabric, and somehow a few seconds later he has an aug all but in his lap.

Adam’s hot, almost burning against his cold skin, lean and strong in a way he can feel even through the fabric. The way he always pretended not to notice, or to imagine. And Adam touches him with the kind of tenderness he’s never felt right asking for; it makes him shiver and lean into it, feels like Adam’s lighting him up everywhere they touch. An augmented hand wraps around his, steadying it, pressing it to the hem of Adam’s shirt. Sliding it upwards. He moves, too, pulling grey cloth aside. Adam tosses it away.

It feels inevitable. Easy.

The brush of beard at his neck. “Jim,” Adam says softly, into his ear.

Adam’s bare back is hot under his fingers. He moves to open his eyes, to tell Adam -

 

 

 

 

_Yes._

He realises, lying in the dark, he would’ve said yes.

No.

Weird dreams happen. It doesn’t mean anything. Just because Adam’s the first bloody person he’s seen in days, because Adam saved his life -

\- because Adam smiles like it’s a rarity, soft and fast and putting it away before he thinks anyone’s noticed. Because he’s watched those careful, graceful hands disassemble hardware and help people to their feet and he realised he’s never seen someone touch Adam like it means something, and if anyone deserves a bit of gentleness -

Fuck. _No._ Fucking hell, _no._

Just a weird dream. Too much stress, too long since he’s had any sex. Auzenne would probably say something about displacement, but like hell he’d take this to her. To anyone.

He thought he was a decent man, once.

Hell, he doesn’t even know what’s under those shirts and jumpers – Not that he wants to. Jesus Christ, he’s not -

Just a glimpse in a locker room. Shining black metal and enough muscle – real, human muscle – that Jim abruptly realised not all the strength was the augs. And that the files and specs didn’t do Adam any justice. The long leanness of him. Scars and bolts and dark connections, stark against pale skin and flexing muscle. Strange. Beautiful.

He looked away almost instantly. Had to, for his own sanity. Regretted even a seeing a little. Adam’s face was bad enough, the rest of him couldn’t be as...

“ _Fuck,”_ he mutters, and then he throws himself out of bed and goes to clean his guns.

 

 

 

 

 

He keeps doing the exercises. Doesn’t think about it. Doesn’t ask Mac to send someone else, because that’d be as good as signing a confession.

A confession to… what? Dreams happen, and London’s fucked with his head enough. It’s not worth giving it more power than it deserves. Just a passing, stupid thought. It's not like Jensen's ugly.

If he’s spending more time with his punchbag than he used to, that doesn’t mean much. He’s spent long enough pretending it’s Manderley - he has even more reasons to do that now – and he needs to train himself back up. He works past what’s sensible, until his body’s too busy screaming at him to think of a soft, hesitant kiss, or the rub of beard against his face.

And if he catches himself sitting afterwards with his aching back and his trembling, raw hands, thinking about warm carbon fingers against his -

Well, that’s just fucking stupid. He closes his eyes, lets his head _thunk_ against the wall.

Those files will have to go back to the office sometime, and – he grimaces at the thought, but he’s right – if he went in now, he’d be a bloody liability. It’d be easier if it were a courier. But he knows Mac. More like, knows how bloody _petty_ Mac is.

 _You could give him a break, you know,_ he remembers typing on a better day. He was still trying to wake up and figured even chat was easier than half-reading the crap Picus were peddling. _He_ _got us both out of London alive_ _._

 _Yeah, by disobeying a direct order._ The response came back almost at once.

He sighed, tried to work out how not to incriminate his best asset, and wrote, _There’s no record of him receiving any orders about the Orchid._

_I know. But I also know you. There was one dose. And a bunch of delegates in the other room._

He flexed his fingers, glaring at his fruit bowl and really wishing this job didn’t involve so much fucking diplomacy. _No comment._

 _Look, I’m guessing he didn’t start a drip right there and then, so you must have had some input._ There was a delay, and a stupidly long “typing” period, before the next message: _It’s still good you’re here._ Another pause. _But I’m the one wrangling him._

_Fine. But I’ll be keeping an eye out. No sending him on garbage disposal runs._

The words arrived almost instantly, dripping with vinegar even through text. _Yes, sir._ He could just imagine what Mac’s eyebrows were doing.

Jim is beginning to wonder if he can have an agent who isn’t a sarcastic pain in the arse.

His unconscious being an idiot doesn’t mean anything. Just a dream. Stress and loneliness can do a number on you.

...Not that he’s lonely. Tired, maybe. Feeling older by the day, yeah. _Busy,_ certainly. But he’s not -

Screw it. Maybe he is. But it’s not about anyone in particular. And even if he’s lonely, he’s not _desperate._ And it’s not about Adam. Maybe it’s about Neil, or the destroyed remains of his marriage and his family, or nearly dying, but it’s not -

The _snikt_ of eyeshields, and the dawning fear in Adam’s eyes, when Jim finally saw them.

And even then, some buried-deep part of him thought, with a jolt of something confusing: _**...Oh.**_ _(Oh God, no.)_

Adam’s hand, trembling slightly before something activated. An aim stabiliser, maybe. Adam doesn’t seem to use them unless he’s in fights - trying to feel more human, maybe, flaws and all, or maybe the inbuilt precision of his hands is enough most of the time. He must’ve been worried about spilling or losing even a little of the antidote.

Jim remembers a vial held to his lips and a hand under his chin, tilting his face upwards. Staying there, just for a second or two, and then gone.

Gentle. Always gentler than Jim had ever accounted for. And he should’ve accounted for everything. It was his fucking _job._

He sighs, and decides even paperwork is better than sitting in that kitchen again with his sight flickering, Adam crouched over him with eyes full of fear. Watching him die. He runs his tongue over his teeth, and for a second he can almost taste blood. He closes his eyes, and reminds himself where he is.

Yeah. Paperwork.

 

 

 

 

 

He’s five minutes post-a stupidly slow workout that ended with him dragging himself to the shower far too early, still towelling off his hair and trying not to get a decent undershirt damp, when the intercom goes. He winces, glares at it, and then trudges over to press the button.

“Sir, papers for you.”

The wince turns to an all-out grimace. The world’s got great bloody timing. He just tries to keep it out of his voice, and buzzes Adam through. “All right. Come up.”

“Thanks.”

When the knock comes, he’s still trying to do… something with his hair so he won’t look like exhausted shit.

He’s never told A – Jensen that he’d know even without them speaking who’s outside: Jensen’s got a cop’s rap, an assessing way of pausing outside the door – and if those two things weren’t enough to be certain, the sound of metal knuckles, sharper than gloves or an exoskeleton, would do the rest. Jim almost lets himself be amused at the thought, then he remembers the dream and how fucking stupid he’s already been.

When he opens the door, he thanks God the shades are back on. It makes this all a little more normal. It’s almost like the past few months could have never happened, and he’s the other side of a desk, about to berate the new pain-in-the-arse agent. “Jensen.”

The slightest raise of Adam’s eyebrow. It hits Jim all over again that he’s still in casuals and a vest and looking like… well. Like he’s been trying to push himself past all sensible limits and it’s nearly killed him. A flare of irritation, then. This is _his_ place, for God’s sake. If there’s any judgement behind those bloody shades…

Jensen hands over another of those cardboard courier’s boxes, and Jim takes it. The weight of it is reassuring. A shitton of paperwork, at least, is normal, and suddenly he almost wants to thank Jensen for not patronising him and trying to put it down for him. It’s also one more thing that makes him dread the days ahead. “Thanks,” he says.

Jensen nods. “You got the others for me to bring back?”

Jim swallows. “Sure. I’ll just - ”

He’s glad to turn away; looking at Adam is dangerous. It’s as if now he’s let himself look, acknowledge it, he can’t stop. Can’t stop seeing how the shades just draw attention to the sharpness of Adam’s cheekbones, the strength of his face, the barely-there freckles Jim only noticed a few months after they started working together. Can't stop seeing the length of those legs under the coat. Can't help the way he half-glances back and catches Adam biting his lip.

No. He runs a hand through his hair and tugs on it just a little, focuses. Then he keeps on a course, crosses the room to grab the papers he’s left on his coffee table.

He’s throwing them into a folder and tying it when he finally places the strange feeling. At first he put it down to self-consciousness. That slight prickle up his spine, settling like a hand on the back of his neck - like someone’s watching him, or…

Or something else.

He knows what being eyed up feels like. It hasn’t been _that_ long. Happened the second day he was in Prague, even, and enough times since. Just because he wasn’t interested, it didn’t make him oblivious.

He looks over his shoulder.

Adam’s leaning a hip against the doorway. The shades are as impassive as ever, but there’s the slightest considering tilt to Adam’s head, and he’s biting his lip -

Jim only gets a glimpse. There’s a half-second of movement, barely there, and when he blinks, Adam’s looking at the coffee machine like it holds the secrets of the universe. But maybe there's the slightest bit of tension in his shoulders, like he’s just been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Or maybe that’s just the formal stiffness, the way Adam always acts when they’re working.

Jim tries to keep the surprise off his face. He crosses the room, hands over the papers, and says, “Thanks, agent. Ask Mac if he can deliver on Thursday.”

Adam nods. “Yes, sir.” Then he’s stepping back, gone before Jim can think any of it through.

Got to be wishful thinking. Maybe the Orchid’s fucked with his head too.

Or maybe -

No. Jim’s tired and harbouring some career-ending stupidity, not delusional. Must’ve been a trick of the light. Next time, he’s asking Mac for more warning. And Adam is going to stay _Agent Jensen._

 

 

 

 

 

A knock at his door. Again. Again, a little more urgently.

He’s halfway down the stairs when his computer pings with an infolink connection, and he hears it.

“Could… uh. Could use a little help.” Adam’s voice cracks on the last word. He’s breathless, and it sounds like he’s in pain.

God knows how Adam got into the system. It should be worrying. Jim doesn’t bloody _care_.

“I’ll be a second.” Jim’s already grabbed a pistol before he can think much of it.

Adam wouldn’t drag danger to his door if he had a choice. Jim realises as he throws himself toward the door that he can’t hear anything exploding, so this probably isn’t Adam’s version of “too bad,” but it pays to be careful in his job. Former job. Whatever the bloody hell it is. (He’s going back, he tells himself as he reaches the door. He’s not done yet. He’s going back.)

He opens the door a crack -

It’s just Adam, alone. And Adam looks like _shit._ There’s blood on his face, and he looks like he’s trying not to pant as he leans against the doorframe. “Ji – Boss.”

Jim swallows at the hasty correction. Not the point, anyway. He’s a lot more worried about the blood dripping down Adam’s cheek, getting into that carefully maintained beard. And Adam’s shoulders, tense with pain, and the contained fury in Adam’s eyes. The fact the shields are off. That has to mean things got bad.

Jim yanks the door open. Puts his pistol aside, more carefully. “Christ, what _happened?”_

“Cops jumped me.” Adam’s voice is too rough, too pained. He starts forward -

\- and stumbles.

Jim’s seen that maybe twice in all the time they’ve worked together. He’s almost too surprised to try and lend a hand.

Adam hisses in pain and catches himself on the doorframe again, on the edge of too late, just before his face can hit hardwood floor.

That’s it.

“Come on,” Jim says, and steps into Adam’s space. He takes a sleek black arm and slings it over his shoulders.

Adam’s head raises, and the look in his eyes is terrifyingly like gratitude. Fuck.

They stumble into the apartment like that, and Adam should be too heavy, but he’s supporting just enough of his own weight that they get there. Still aches like hell, and every muscle in Jim's body screams at him, but he’s not about to show it. He isn’t the one who just got the hell beaten out of him. Adam hisses the odd breath through his teeth when something gets jarred and he can’t pretend any more, and Jim tries not to let his fists clench.

The journey feels like a mile. Eventually, Adam backs away from him and then wobbles to sit heavily on his couch.

Jim stares at Adam’s bowed head, the tightly-contained rage he knows will be under the stillness. He manages, eventually, “What’d they _do_ to you?”

Adam swallows. “Couple EMPs. They only got a few hits in, but...” Something rough and humourless that’s nothing like a laugh. “...they were good hits.”

“Hold on. I’ve got a first aid kit.” Jim all but sprints upstairs to grab it out of his bathroom.

When he gets back, Adam’s still sitting there, trenchcoat and all. He’s listing slightly, and he looks bloody exhausted in a way Jim’s only seen after GARM, or in the VTOL after London. And even then, it was nothing like this. Adam stares at the floor, and looks like he wants to go to sleep and maybe never get back up again.

Jim says, for something to say, “I’m surprised they got that far. I thought you’d have wiped the floor with them.” He opens the kitchen cupboard, grabs one of the spare biocells he keeps for emergencies.

Adam shakes his head, just slightly. “They waited ‘til we were in a public square. I figured some milspec aug beating on the cops… No way that’d end well. I tried to hold off. Showed them my papers. That’s when they got me.”

“Fucking _hell.”_

Adam looks up sharply, like Jim’s anger is surprising.

Maybe it is. It’s not new, wanting to deck every cop in Prague. But this depth, this heat to it, the way there’s something in Jim’s chest like he wants to protect Adam, the last person who needs it - “Next time, beat the shit out of them. I’ll handle the paperwork.”

Even through the pain, the corner of Adam’s mouth ticks up. “You don’t mean that.”

Jim sighs, and admits, “I shouldn’t. But I do.”

Adam ducks his head. “Someone could’ve gotten hurt. Didn’t wanna give them the excuse.”

Jim stares back. “ _You_ got hurt.”

Adam just shrugs. “I’m milspec.” _I’m not anyone._

Jim shakes his head, and goes to dampen a cloth. “When I get back in, I’ll...” He grits his teeth. “… give them a piece of my fucking mind. They don’t do that to y – to one of our people.” He breathes through his nose. “You said you showed them your ID.” He sighs. “Like that makes it better. No-one should have to put up with this… shit.” He reaches the couch, sits down next to Adam, and proffers the cloth. “You ought to get that rinsed, so you can take a proper look at it. I’ve got an antiseptic.”

Adam hesitates a second before taking the cloth, like he’s not used to this. He does it gently, uncertainly. “Thanks. Got a few bruised ribs. The Sentinel says it’s not that bad, but the regen hasn’t kicked in yet.” He winces and then does it again, harder, when it makes his injury hurt. “The EMP kinda fried me.” He starts to wipe at the blood, teeth gritted.

Jim swallows. “Yeah, about that...” He offers the biocell, too.

Adam looks down at it, surprised.

“Contingencies,” Jim says, wondering why the hell he sounds so defensive. Maybe it’s just that this particular contingency never came to mind.

There’s the slightest whirr, and then Adam’s arm… opens. Just a panel, nothing like the drastic shit he can do in the field, but Jim’s still too careful not to stare. Adam’s eyes are far away - checking his systems, probably, or trying to – but that’s not the point. Jim reaches out, and hesitates.

Adam meets his eyes briefly, gives the slightest nod before frowning and rolling his other shoulder, grimacing. Doing his own diagnostics, on human instinct.

Now Jim really _is_ trying not to stare. Because he’s _seen_ how Adam is about his augs. Not… possessive, not loud, but… at a distance. He sees a doctor out of office, one he chose, and he likes his personal space. One of the analysts tried to prod at his hand once, and Adam slid it away so fast it was just a blur, TESLA coils lighting up blue. The idiot got the message, all but jumped back, and Jim raised an impressed eyebrow before he pretended he hadn’t seen anything through his office window.

Other than the mysterious, probably-only-semi-legal doctor – he knows there aren’t many good option now the LIMB clinics have fallen apart – the only person who disassembles or maintains Adam’s augs, or even touches them, is _Adam._

He waits another second before he puts his hand on Adam’s arm, wondering if he even needs to steady it. The polymer it’s made of is… warm. He knew the augs could overheat, knew there had to be some kind of venting – hell, he’s handled enough augs in his time, with them being evidence exhibits – but... He expected something cold, maybe metallic, from the sleek black and the gold panels. But no. It feels like it might give, barely, if he pressed his fingers in. Not quite skin, harder than that, but not quite… not, either. It feels like he’s touching part of someone. Part of Adam.

He grinds his teeth at that. _Stop hanging around_ _to feel him up_. He inserts the biocell. He’s done it with enough appliances, it’s just different when this is… Adam, sitting steady but still breathing a little heavily, because he’s got to be in pain.

The panel closes as fast as it opened, and Jim’s left there, holding onto his agent’s arm.

He suddenly thinks of that moment in the hospital room – a half-second but still too much - and takes his hand swiftly back.

He looks up and Adam’s eyes are on him, questioning.

His self-preservation instinct hopes to God that Adam hasn’t activated the CASIE before his rational brain catches up with the thought that even if Adam wanted to, it’d be impossible. Not that one’d even be needed. He’s had his honesty get him in trouble enough times, he thought he’d learned to school it all, but it feels like everything must be written across his face.

He swallows through his suddenly dry throat. “You all right?” he manages.

Adam looks at him a second longer – head tilting, frowning a little, trying to process the information in front of him, and that’s only a little terrifying – and…

There’s a _whirr,_ a click. Something in Adam’s arm lights up a bright, brief blue. Adam looks sharply aside, shades sliding into place. Frowns at nothing. Agent Jensen, doing diagnostics with that silent, unnerving intensity that always put the others on edge.

Jim’s relieved. He is. That conversation was going nowhere good. He doesn’t know why there’s suddenly a hole in his chest.

“I’m getting better,” Adam says, shaky but with a little lightness coming back. His fingers twitch, flex, and he clenches his fists.

Jim watches the shine of gold knuckles and wonders. Sure, it makes sense that people want their augs to be nice to look at, but he doesn’t know why someone made them so… beautiful. He’s not one of those fetishists, but he’s never seen anything like them. He’s read the files. These were custom jobs, every piece designed. These aren’t like the TYM knockoffs, or anything else. They’re sleek and beautiful and... Adam. And he’s seen his share of augs before. It’s not them. It’s the way Adam uses them, that quiet, thoughtful body language…

No. Enough.

He frowns. “Why the hell were you around here, anyway?”

Adam laughs, rusty and pained. “Came to collect the papers. I’ll drop ‘em off when I can.”

Jim just stares. “Jesus _Christ_ , Adam, you don’t have to...”

“Yeah, I do.” For all the obstinacy, Adam’s voice is gentle.

Jim shakes his head and decides to pick his battles. He digs around in the kit and offers it to Adam. “You got their badge numbers? Names?”

Adam shakes his head, just slightly. “Sentinel’ll fix it up.”

Jim glares at him. “Right. But your systems have just been fried, and I know it takes a while to kick in.”

The shades are suddenly gone. Adam glares back with those sharp, aug-bright eyes. “The augs can look after themselves. It’s not worth wasting it on me.”

Jim grits his teeth, and doesn’t give in. He never has, even while Adam’s been bloody obstinate since they met. This is easy, almost familiar after the quiet of before. “I’ve got enough supplies for an army.” Or a family. “And Jesus, Adam, it’s not a _waste_.”

Adam’s jaw works, and then he sighs. He nods, short and sharp, glancing away. “Fine.” He taps a couple fingers to his face, just short of the injury. “You mind helping me out? I’ve got a lot of things, but not built-in mirrors. I’d use your bathroom, but seems like you think I’ll drop dead if I’m out of your sight for a second - ”

Jim sharply tears into the VersaLife tape. It cuts Adam off, so it’s enough. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Adam sighs again, slight. “I kinda had to… uh. Knock a couple out.”

“Fuck.” Jim winces. “But even so… they assaulted you. And the office’ll stand behind you if it has to.”

The hint of a twitch in Adam’s mouth, small and rueful. A smile, or the nearest thing he can muster. “Thanks.” It’s quiet, but it sounds like he means it.

“You deserve better. Fucking hell, _everyone_ deserves better, but an agent – I thought at least we could help our own.”

“Yeah.” Something desolate crosses Adam’s face, then, and it’s obvious even while he tries to hide it.

Jim sighs and raises his hand. “This is the antiseptic stuff, with the acceleration film. Got it from Phillips herself.”

Adam grimaces, just slightly. Does it even more when that stretches the cut.

“Hold still,” Jim says, and then starts to tape the injury. He measures it up with his hands, starts smoothing it down over the cut, and almost pauses when Adam speaks.

“I left because of dirty cops.” Adam swallows, and it’s loud in the silence. He sounds exhausted. “Back home… Dirty cops, bad orders. Didn’t wanna be a blunt instrument. Some days I want to believe that mattered. Days like this, it’s harder to believe that.”

Jim exhales heavily at that. Feels the weight of it. “Yeah, I know. That’s a familiar feeling. Wish I’d shared your principle, sometimes.” He stares at what he’s doing so he doesn’t have to look Adam in the eye. “You know, you were right.”

Adam just tilts his head to meet Jim’s gaze, brow crinkling with a question and almost fucking up the tape.

“The higher-ups wanted to me to pin everything on ARC.” Jim sighs. “I hope to God I wouldn’t have gone along with it, but.. I don’t know.”

“I had a feeling.” Adam’s eyes are sharp. “But you were also pushing me to bring Rucker in alive. Would’ve been easy to bury him. Fewer questions that way.”

“Yeah, well...” Jim presses at the edges of the tape, ignoring Adam’s wince. “It might’ve just been me trying to feel better about the amount of people I’d killed, but... I used to pretend I was a decent man, once. It’s why I took the damn job.”

“ _You are._ Jim, listen to me. _”_

The intensity of Adam’s voice, Adam’s stare, makes Jim’s fingers stop. That slip-up of humanity again, when Adam forgets to pretend his brain’s made of metal, too. His eyes are sharp, fervent, and his face is… he looks…

Adam searches his face like he’s trying to work out what the hell’s going on, too. Jim thinks they skate over his mouth briefly, but that’s just his imagination. Just wishful thinking.

Then they return there, linger, and Adam’s mouth falls open a little, his eyes going half-lidded.

Jim realises they’re far too close together, and that his hand’s strayed, his thumb briefly tracing over Adam’s temple, over skin far softer than he expected it to be -

No. _No._

He takes it away sharply. “Adam. You sure you’re not concussed?”

Adam blinks. The honesty in Adam’s face is swiftly gone, packed away like it never happened. The change is unsettling to watch. The idea that he’s hiding, that he’s lying… it makes Jim realise just how little he’s done it, all the time they’ve known each other. “Why, cause I gave you a compliment?” He’s flippant, but he sounds exhausted. “The Sentinel says no. Skin and muscle damage only.”

Jim checks it again. It almost seems a little less swollen already. God, that’s weird; he’s not used to Adam’s metabolism. He shifts away – to snap the first-aid kit closed, definitely, not because he needs to put space between himself and Adam so his mind won’t play any more tricks on him. So he can't feel the warmth radiating off Adam steadily. He raises the case. “Right. I’m gonna put this back upstairs.”

When he’s upstairs, he puts it back and finds himself pausing, meeting his own eyes in the mirror. They’re still just a little too dark, and his breathing is still tight, carefully controlled. Not that obvious unless you know him well, unless you’re looking for it… He prays Adam wasn’t. That Adam didn’t get out the fucking CASIE – no, Adam’s a better man than that. He’s never seemed entirely comfortable with that aug.

He looks at his scars, the tired frown lines. Why the fuck would anyone want to get involved with this? Especially Adam, who could have anyone he wanted. Who wouldn’t be stupid enough to try something with his boss, especially not the boss’s boss who spent months chewing him out.

Just his imagination. He needs to learn some fucking self-control and stop daydreaming.

He grunts, shakes his head, and heads back downstairs. He’s most of the way down when he – pauses.

Adam’s asleep. On that crap, uncomfortable modernist couch, head at an angle, listing but only half-lying, like he didn’t even mean to drop off. Maybe it’s the rebreather, maybe he didn’t before, but he doesn’t snore, just breathes deep and even. He even _sleeps_ stealthily, and Jim’s half-amused at the thought. Adam's colour is already better, and he’s… softer, like this. Still sharp-featured, but he doesn’t look anymore like he’s permanently gritting his teeth.

Jim stands and stares, surprised by the length of Adam’s eyelashes, the softness of Adam’s mouth now it’s not drawn tight and wary. Adam’s always handsome, in a pale and angry kicking-someone’s-arse way, but this is...

He was well-liked, some of the reports said - a straight-shooter, a good man, kind and bad at hiding it. Wanted to protect people. Had family and a woman he loved, before things went to hell. He must have let himself be human, once. Times like this, or when Jim surprises a brief, genuine laugh out if him that isn't a teeth-gritted snort, Jim can see it. It's hard to imagine anyone seeing this Adam and not wanting to stick around. Maybe that's what Adam's afraid of, hence the shades and all the defensive growling - that someone might. 

Jim remembers the hospital room and wonders how they always seem to end up like this. Even if he’s surprised by Adam’s trust, he tries not to pay too much attention to the sight. It feels stolen. It’s just an accident, not for him to know about. There wasn’t anywhere else. He’s not going to see it again, and he shouldn’t.

He drags his eyes away, and sighs. He figures if there’s no head wound… well. There aren’t many people who need the sleep more. He rips a sticky note off the pile he keeps on the shelves, scribbles on it, _I’ll make a call to the office._ He sticks it firmly onto the back of one slack, shining hand. He grabs a blanket out of a cupboard and tosses it over Adam.

Then he turns away to sit in his kitchen, make the call and get to work.

At some point, he looks up from reports to find the old, tied-up “done” pile gone. Sure enough, the couch is empty, too, with a neatly-folded blanket sitting on it.

His note’s stuck onto the counter a couple feet away. When he takes it and reads, there’s an addition in that square, aug-precise cop’s handwriting: _Thanks._

 

 

 

 

 

He should never have tried to help. He was a bloody fool. Now he knows how the augs feel, how Adam looks when he’s relaxed and trusting.

The next dream’s worse.

He dreams of Adam around him, in him, panting against his skin and saying his name like a prayer. Doing anything, everything. It’s a blur of sensation and that rough voice urging him on, but he has… flashes.

Shifting, warm polymer. Metal fingers tight around his. Wild green eyes and that sharp grin, not the brief thing in between missions but the realer one in the quieter times, all relief and disbelief.

And he kisses back. Pulls Adam closer. He takes a handful of that hair and messes it up, making Adam look at him, and grins, too. He takes everything Adam offers like there’s nothing else in the world and he can afford to. Savours it, every second, and where guilt should be, there’s just...

Pleasure.

 

 

 

 

 

He wakes alone, and _aching_ in a way he hasn’t since he thought his marriage could still be saved or since… since the last time he thought of Adam finding him in that kitchen, and the way Adam looked at him. Or since he saw the way Adam’s eyes look when he smiles.

Fuck. No, no, _no._

Adam's too damn handsome for his own good, and he could probably have anyone he wanted if they didn’t turn their nose up at the augs and if he took the goddamn shades off once in a while. The kind of man Jim might have pursued ten or fifteen years ago, without a steady marriage and when he had a lot more swagger.

Also his subordinate, and what, thirty-something? Probably not even into men. Definitely not into him. And the man who saved his life. He knows it can happen; your mind can get stupid when it thinks you owe a debt. And this is nothing but stupidity.

This can’t happen. And it won’t.

It won’t.

_Fuck._

He puts his head in his hands and tries not to have a midlife crisis. It feels like too little, too late.

 

 

 

 

 

“You alright, boss?”

He looks up from his coffee, and thanks God it’s been a week since that bloody dream. He can just about look Adam in the eye. He doesn’t know how Adam ended up back in his apartment, but after getting patched up here and the hint of a tentative smile Adam gave him when he brought round this latest stack of papers, like he was wondering too where they were at now… it felt sort of inevitable. Too comfortable.

So now they’re back here, Adam sitting in his kitchen, drinking his coffee – with enough sugar you could stand a spoon in it – and watching him curiously.

“Fine. I was just wondering” - _if you’d be this quiet and uptight if I got on my knees for you, fuck,_ _ **no**_ _-_ “when I’ll be able to get into the office and you won’t be stuck as Mac’s errand-boy.”

Adam snorts. “Yeah. Good question.”

Jim raises an eyebrow. “He forgiven you for getting Black’s old job yet?”

“He’s… working on it.” Adam takes a thoughtful drink from his own mug, and leans back on the couch. “I think he figures he sends me out enough, he’ll forget I exist.” He tilts his head, raises a sardonic eyebrow, and something crosses his face -

“You’re not cloaking round the office.”

Adam’s eyebrows nearly shoot off his forehead, and it’s even more comical to watch without the shades. “I didn’t - “

“Yeah, but you thought it.”

A half-smile, just the smallest tilt of Adam’s mouth, but it’s sincere, and an answering one tugs on Jim’s lips.

The silence settles after that, lengthens.

Adam isn’t as sneaky as he thinks he is. Without the shades, his eyes are everywhere, considering and quietly curious. And they keep landing on the pictures Jim can’t make himself put away. Because regardless of what he’s done, his children are not _mistakes_ , and he won’t pretend otherwise. They’re the only decent change he’s ever made, and even now the world’s trying to take that away. The time he tried to be better wasn’t one of those either. He wants to pretend he’s learned something from it, these days. What not to do, at the very least.

“What?” he says. It’s curt, but he doesn’t know what else to be. He doesn’t do this. He doesn’t talk about this. There are some lines he’s had to draw for his own sanity, and Adam’s crossed too many of them already.

Adam sharply looks away. “Nothing.”

The bitterness, the memories… It’s all creeping back into his voice. God, this is why he doesn’t talk about it. “You want to ask. Just do it.”

Adam swallows. “Guessing there’s a story there.”

Jim’s head is aching, there’s a tight band of pain across his shoulderblades, and he feels the coldest he has since he stepped off a plane here. And Adam’s probably wondering what the hell went on, making assumptions… Maybe that’s what makes him say, “That’s been over for a long time. There was a custody dispute, but...” He shrugs, and says bleakly into his coffee, “Pretty sure that’s over, too.” He takes a mouthful. “There was a time I thought I could just get a desk job, look at early retirement. Now I know I was fooling myself, but I thought…” Another bleak shrug. “Something. I don’t know. I was at least going to _try._ And then the Incident happened, and the world started blowing up. And the UN called.” He adds, too bitter, “It’s not like I saw them before, anyway.”

Adam watches him, steady and silent. The corners of that expressive mouth downturn just a little, and his brows knit... Fuck, this was never about pity. “You could - “

Jim looks into a full-caff Americano, because it’s easier to do that than meet whatever the fuck is in Adam’s eyes. “If you say I should take a break, I’ll deck you.” He drains the cup.

“Alright.” Adam takes a sip of his coffee. “Sorry.”

Jim stands to pour out another cup, and says over the steam, “Don’t worry about it.” The resistance is leaching out of him, now, leaving exhaustion in its wake.

Adam glances at Jim, and then returns his eyes to the counter. Scratches his beard, and looks like he’s trying to find the right words. “You, uh. You tried again? After?”

Jim raises a brow and tries not to show his surprise. “Too tired. Too fucking _busy.”_ Then he meanders back to the kitchen bar, and sits down with a sigh. “I’m still dealing with the fallout from the last time I tried to… I think it’s best for everyone if I don’t.” He shakes his head, in disgust at himself or the whole damn situation.

Adam’s frowning like he’s just said something stupid.

Jim can’t afford to examine that too closely, so he says, “You?” He realises the minute he says it that he shouldn’t have asked. Too personal. Too… everything.

Adam’s jaw works, and he glances back at the walls. His eyes meet Jim’s and then skate away again, and he says, “I had an ex, back in Detroit. But things changed. And after the Incident… No-one’s gonna sign up for this.” Adam’s glancing down at the augs, but Jim’s watching his face, the thoughtful way he cradles the mug, the softness of his expression.

 _Why_ _the hell_ _wouldn’t they?_ It’s on the tip of Jim’s tongue – so close he nearly says it.

Shit. No. But if he were ten years younger and _not Adam’s boss,_ if he weren’t still trying to patch up what remains of his life… Maybe he’d ask Adam if he wanted to get the other kind of coffee.

Instead, he reminds himself who he is, and says, “Prague isn’t the rest of the world, Adam. We only see the worst of it, the people trying to goddamn _kill_ each other. It won’t always be like this. And there are… there are people out there who wouldn’t see it that way.”

Adam snorts. “Yeah. Most of them are in the red-light district, trying to buy people like - ” He drinks so he doesn’t have to say it.

Christ. “I don’t mean the bloody fetishists. I’m not talking about your augs, I’m taking about _all of you_. There are enough people who’d see you for who you are. And that’s pretty bloody impressive.”

Adam stares at him. “I… thanks.”

Jim sharply looks away, rubbing his forehead. “Ignore me. I’ve seen the way people talk to you, the _shit_ you have to put up with, and I just…. Long day.”

But Adam’s eyes are still on him, sharp and searching. “You know anyone could say the same about you, right?”

Jim shakes his head a little, a nonverbal scoff.

“All the time I’ve known you, you keep trying to protect people. You were gonna die to do it.”

Jim can’t look at Adam’s face then. It’s too much. “Part of the job.”

“You act like it’s… more than that. Like it’s who you are. And hell, even the damn _Orchid_ couldn’t kill you. For someone unaugmented, that’s...”

Jim feels something hot, tense crawl into his face. This is… too much. He’s not getting applauded for _existing._ Now it’s his turn to laugh that off. “Yeah, right.” He clears his throat. “Shouldn’t you be back at work?”

The moment shatters like a glass: the change is small, but enough to make them both move.

Adam blinks. Looks aside to consult the clock. “Shit. You’re right. Lost track of time, I guess.”

Jim shouldn’t feel just a little pleased at that, but he does. And then hates himself for it.

Adam drains the last of his coffee. Then he raises the mug. “Thanks. I’ll head back.”

Jim comes with him, out of habit. Definitely not because this is the only visit he’s had since his sister caught a plane and yelled at him for the lack of news and _thank God, you’re alive, I thought this would be Dad all over again._ He remembers the tightness of her arms around him, the dampness of her face against his cheek. First time they’d seen each other in months. And then shortly after, there was Mac, bitching and moaning about the new analysts and about Adam, always Adam. In between, the visits from the physio telling him exactly what he couldn’t do and the exercises, numbing and painful by turns.

Definitely not because of that. And definitely not because it feels like a small victory every time he gets to see Adam smile. Or the way that small, rough, awkward laugh settles down his spine. Or the way Adam genuinely, painfully seems to _give a shit._ That shouldn’t be a good thing, it isn’t, but…

Jim opens the door slightly harder than he intended. The sooner he can get Adam the hell out of his apartment and stop being an idiot, the better.

Adam pauses. “When do you want me to collect?”

Jim sighs, and looks back at the neatly-wrapped pile of shit and disaster on his counter. “Should be done by Friday.”

“Sure. I’ll come back then.” There’s the slightest hesitation, a stutter in that smooth augmented gait, like Adam doesn’t want to go.

Jim passes over that fancy trenchcoat, presses it into Adam’s arms. Adam’s hands tighten like he’s glad to have his oversized security blanket back, and Jim suddenly, annoyedly finds himself feeling jealous of a bunch of material. He tries to shake that thought off, but the lack of professionalism is clearly still there, because he pauses. “Just… don’t get yourself killed, all right?” Shit.

Adam grins, then, savage and cocky and like he’s just about to throw himself out of a VTOL and dismantle some terrorist base, teeth sharp. “You know me, sir. I’m always careful.” He suppresses a laugh at Jim’s sceptical expression, and then he’s backing out of Jim’s door, turning to unfold the coat and shrug it on. A few steps down the corridor he turns up the collar, and there’s the quiet sliding sound of eyeshields.

Jim realises he’s watching Adam go. He drags himself away and closes the door. Tries to close it on his thoughts about Adam, too.

 

 

 

 

 

It isn’t Friday.

It’s Wednesday and far too late when he opens the door to find Adam on his doorstep, parcel-less, eyes pleading. He’s breathless and there’s rain in his hair.

“Jim," he says.

“Adam, what - ?” He meant to say _Jensen._ He swears he did.

“I need to ask for your help. Didn’t wanna drag you into this, but the Orchid… Looks like you’re already there. There are people coming after you.” Adam’s breathless, voice even rougher than usual. “It’s about London.”

Jim steps aside, numbly. He always knew this was coming. What they said, in that kitchen – it didn’t add up. Didn’t sound like ARC.

Adam steps inside, hair flattened and damp leather shining, then reaches into his pocket and brings out something tiny. A memory stick, and he presses it into Jim’s hand. “I didn’t have a choice,” he says, softly.

Jim takes it by instinct. “What – what the _hell?”_

“I can explain,” Adam says.

And he does. Or tries to, at least. Jim hears _Illuminati_ and _the Collective_ and _double agent_ and puts all the space he can between them, because his heart's freezing in his chest and this is… “Jesus fucking _Christ,_ Adam! Do you know how illegal this is? How fucking far up this goes?”

“I’m sorry.”

“And that’s what the GARM mess was about? You’re, what, _investigating_ me? For a bunch of hackers?”

“No. I _was_. I had to know. Tried to tell them you weren’t in on it. I wanted to be right. Just… not like this.”

“You really think I’d throw one of my own to the wolves?” Jim scrapes a hand through his hair. When Adam opens his mouth to answer, Jim ploughs on. He doesn’t want to hear it. “So, what, you thought you’d just cosy yourself up and get into my home, find the intel you wanted and screw us all over, is that it?”

“No. I swear to God that’s not what happened.” Adam sighs. “Jim - “

“ _Don’t._ I might be a damn fool, but I know when I’ve been used _._ _”_ He grinds his teeth, and then says, rather than getting the cuffs or punching something, “ _Was it you?”_

There’s something horribly like recognition, and fear, growing in Adam’s eyes. “Was what me?” he asks, like he already knows.

“I come back here and something’s… off. Then later I find out the techs lost access to the NSN logs for a couple minutes.” Adam’s eyes close, pained, and Jim knows. “At the time I supposed it was Manderley trying to lock me out again, but now - “

Adam won’t even meet his eye. “Yeah, that was me. I’m sorry.”

“At least look at me when you’re lying to me.”

He regrets it the minute he says it. Adam’s eyes are wide, and they look so honest that it’s lethal. “I stopped the investigation months ago. Mostly before London, but the Orchid was pretty definitive proof.”

Jim snorts, bleakly.

“The rest was… I just wanted to help. I figured maybe if I’d gotten there sooner, found the right leads… maybe they would never have cornered you.” Adam’s eyes are wide and green, and so pained it’s hard to look at them. He adds, quiet and lost-sounding, “Mac really did send me here.”

Jim’s voice softens, and he hates himself for it. “That one’s not your fault. But the rest… _fuck._ The Collective are - “

“Non-violent, most of the time. And you think I trust them either?”

Jim glares back. “I’m not sure you trust anyone. I don’t know how many fucking games you’re playing here.”

“I trust you.” Matter-of-fact, like it’s easy. And isn’t that a kick in the chest.

“And the cops? The time you got the shit kicked out of you?”

“Real. Didn’t wanna lie to you.”

“Just _omit._ Omit everything.”

Adam glances back to Manderley’s file on the coffee table. Yeah, all right, so maybe Jim was doing some reading of his own. Had a lot of spare time in the middle of the night when he wasn't sleeping. Adam says, “You know he tried to kill you, right?”

Jim sighs. “Yeah. More like thought than knew for sure, but yeah.”

“You’re a loose end. Now you’re in their sights...”

“I _know.”_

“You should leave town for a while. Anywhere they wouldn't normally look for you. I could talk to Macready - “

“ _No._ I’ve spent enough of my life dodging bullets. I’m not letting this _shit_ chase me out of the job.”

“ _Jim._ ” Adam’s voice is rough, pleading. Goes through him like a knife through butter, and that just makes him angrier.

“ _No_ , agent. Now leave.” He puts his head in his hands. “I can’t do this any more.” No more lines crossed, no more stupidity, no more first names and coffee in his flat and Adam putting fucking stupid ideas in his head… No. This wasn’t Adam. This was all his own stupid, inappropriate -

“Listen to me...” A hand on his arm. Gentle, desperate, and he stares at the gleam of gold knuckles.

He raises his head, looks into Adam’s eyes. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

He expected the shades to come down. More anger, more evasion. Maybe even hurt. Instead Adam just stands steady, doesn’t move his hand, and says, “Sure. When I know you’re not gonna get yourself killed.”

“Why do you care?” Jim growls.

Adam’s eyes go wide, and he stares at Jim with something like outrage. And then – worse – baffled hurt, like he’s just been kicked. Adam closes the distance between them and Jim has a second to think that he’s made a big fucking mistake here -

Adam kisses him. Adam kisses him, and he freezes.

It’s better than the dreams. Better than anything he could’ve thought up. It’s ungentle, blunt - but then Adam’s hands come up to frame his face and Adam breaks away to gasp in a breath before he brings their mouths together again. This time it’s softer and more desperate, and he realises: it’s a _plea_.

Adam presses _please_ into his lips, and God help him, Jim can’t help but respond. His mouth moves against Adam’s and he reaches out to ground himself –

His hand lands on Adam’s hip. Adam inhales.

When Jim’s hand slips under the coat and clenches against Adam’s side, he knows he’s damned himself. Adam makes the smallest, softest sound at that, helpless, like a man drowning, and opens up for him.

Jim breaks, deepens the kiss, and it’s months of stupidity and denial and suppressed longing. He feels something warm. He realises his hand’s strayed to Adam’s waist, pulling him closer -

He wrenches himself away. “ _Adam._ ”

Adam backs up a step, still unsteady. He’s breathless, wide-eyed, the hint of pink in his cheeks. Jim realises too late that Adam’s hand is still outstretched, waiting… offering. There’s a whirr of servos as Adam’s fingers clench, close, and Adam looks away. Says quietly, “That’s why.”

Jim swallows, tries to find the word. Tries to find _something_. “What is this? You trying to get me to defect?”

Adam shakes his head. “I wanted to tell you.” He tilts his head, bites his lip. Jim follows the movement, and realises to his horror that he wants to soothe that sting with his own mouth. Adam says, “Couldn’t. There was something… there. I tried to ignore it. Then London happened.” He raises his head. “And after... that was when I realised what it was. What I… Why I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

Jim runs his hands over his face. He can’t look into Adam’s eyes, or he’ll do something stupid. Like he hasn’t done enough already. “Oh, God.”

“Jim - “

“Get out.” It’d sound better if his voice weren’t shaking. Or if he didn’t add, “Please.”

He looks up, and Adam’s staring at him, pale, a look on his face like he’s been slapped. Then it settles into something worse: resignation. Like Adam’s used to this. Like he deserves it. Adam’s jaw works. Then he nods, once, and turns. On the way out, Jim hears the _snikt_ of eyeshields.

 

 

 

 

 

_I know when I’ve been used._

But does he?

He stares at the ceiling, and remembers.

The shades coming back up. Adam all but fleeing. Adam stepping into his house uncertainly, like he didn’t think he had a right to be there.

Jesus. Adam was _scared._

Adam looking at him, glancing him over, trying to hide it. Adam letting him touch him. And the way Adam touched him in turn: trembling, slowly, like he was savouring it, holding his face like this was…

It certainly _felt_ real. All of it. He’s seen Adam try to lie.

He shoves that aside. The rest of it… Christ, if most of TF29 is compromised… Where the hell is he meant to go? What the fuck’s he meant to do? Any superiors he could report this to are probably in on it themselves.

It should sound fucking ridiculous. He knows it should.

He picks up the memory stick and turns it over in his hand. Then he crosses the room, shoves it into the port of his terminal before he can think it through and decide it’s a virus, that Adam has to be lying, that -

( _Adam’s not lying to you.)_

He tells that part of his mind to shut up, and launches the files. The first one’s an audiolog.

“ _The Orchid is… There are side effects.”_

He swallows. Sits down heavily at his counter.

Fuck.

Any safehouses are compromised. So’s the NSN. He doesn’t know if the American branch is as fucked as his. Jarreau seemed like a good man, but… everyone seems like a good man, until you find the right price. He almost thought the same about himself, once, but considering the amount of people he’s killed and the others that might have died more recently because he turned a blind eye…

Fuck, fuck, _fuck._

He grinds his hands into his eyes, wincing, and then starts to go through the files. He looks through laboratory logs, through meeting minutes… There are emails here, heavily encrypted ones that must have been a bitch to hack into. Manderley’s name comes up. And someone else… VersaLife? _VersaLife_ are in on this? _Christ._

He sits there numbly in the dark. Tries to steady his shaking hands, white-knuckled, and not think about the pain and the hours of goddamn therapy in the hospital, the way it felt like he’d been taken to his knees. The way Manderley signed off on that from a comfortable little office, because he was just an inconvenient loose end. None of that’s sensible. None of that’ll help.

He thought he was dying from the inside. Turns out TF29 is instead.

He reads. Reads some more, and re-reads. Reads them planning to pin it on ARC, reads about unethical experimentation, reads “our network” and the casual, smug acceptance that they’re pulling everyone’s strings. Reads about the Hyron Project, and files that one away in the “new nightmares he thought he’d have been immune to by now” drawer. Reads about a biochip that caused the fucking _Incident._ And then he reads a blunt little report in a familiar, too-formal style. Adam even writes like a cop.

_When Panchaea started to fail, all exits were locked down. What remained of the Hyron Project was destroyed by water and undersea pressure._

He remembers the news. Watching it sink, no-one knowing why, and thinking, _God, there are people in there_.

Adam was in there.

He remembers Adam climbing out of the ocean in Dubai, shivering and silent and giving stiff answers about _The augs are fine,_ sitting still just long enough for basic not-dead-not-concussed checks before shrugging them off. Mac put it down to embarrassment, at the time, or frustration they’d been caught out by the elements.

And on the way back, Adam sat in the back of the VTOL, just checking the augs. Silently, over and over again. Like a machine. Jim heard the quietest _snikt_ , but when he looked, Adam’s head was turned, watching the shadows in the VTOL. And then the shades were back on, and Adam was silent: a statue except for the water slowly dripping off his hair, sliding out from under the shades where it had been caught on his eyelashes, slowing in his beard.

 _Fuck._ Not arrogance at all.

Jim tried to say, there’s a reason he brought in Auzenne...

He reads about GARM and the advance warning. The mole. The way they’d planned to bury Adam’s body and name in the mountains. Tying loose ends. Adam’s report played it down. It was a footnote, just one thing to get out of the way before “sorry about the partial mission failure.” Yeah, he’d mentioned the drugs, but that was later; after he’d stalked into Jim’s office and demanded answers, furious and betrayed. Thinking that Jim had signed off on this. Had all but drugged him and left him out in the cold to die.

The worst thing? It adds up. It all adds up. The timelines, the names...

And if this is all true… there’s one safe bet. One person he can trust. One person who’s been honest with him.

The one he just kicked out.

_Fuck._

 

 

 

 

 

Adam’s door has a load of overcomplicated-looking security systems, and they seem like they’re all checked on the regular and likely to laser an arm off if he screws this up. That said... Jim looks at the ruined couch next to him, remembers the way augs either glared at him or carefully avoided looking at him and the amount of people hovering around even at this time of night, and is kind of surprised he’s gotten this far alive. Hell, there’s already… a collective (he still can’t say _Illuminati_ and not grimace) trying to kill him. Taking one more chance can’t hurt.

He sighs, and then knocks.

The silence lengthens. He hears the quietest noise from Adam’s apartment, maybe a floorboard, and then he’s just left again with himself and the echoes of his fidgeting. He nearly turns around and leaves, but he’s screwed either way. And at least this way, he might actually see some honesty. If Adam doesn’t just leave him to fuck off and die. Which, at this point… He wouldn’t blame him.

The door opens a crack. Jim recognises the set of Adam’s shoulders, the tension of someone with a hand on their weapon. Then it’s gone, and Adam’s raising a brow from under the shades. “Huh,” is all Adam says, sceptically.

Jim says, voice level and careful, “I think we need to talk about your friends.” He doesn’t mention the elephant in the room. Tries his best not to look at Adam’s mouth - which is currently set in a tight line. “And the fact that I was wrong.”

A second where Jim squirms, and then Adam nods, opening the door further and backing away. He turns to take something from the kitchen counter.

Jim takes the gesture of trust for what it is. He closes the door and steps slowly into Adam’s apartment.

It’s exactly as dark and moody as he thought it’d be, a sharp contrast to the white sterility of his own place. But it’s also… warm, and there are traces of life. Traces of Adam, who turns and looks at him. The shades are gone. Adam just waits, arms crossed and leaning against the kitchen island.

Jim starts, throat dry, “I took a look at the files you left with me. I… should’ve listened. But you know how insane this all sounds, don’t you?”

Adam nods.

“I’ve got one question.” Jim takes a step forward. Another. “The Collective – can they can keep my family safe? They’ve been through enough because of me.”

“Yeah. I’ll...” Adam pauses, looks like he corrects himself. “We’ll do everything we can. We’ve got a lot of places off the grid. And I… uh. Protection was kinda what I did, for a while.”

“Right. And the others? You know not everyone’s in on this.”

Adam ducks his head. “We’ll turn who we can, get them out, take it slow. Maybe soon we’ll have enough evidence to dismantle this thing.”

Jim swallows, exhales. “All right. Then… I’ll work with you.”

Adam breathes out, too, slowly, and nods. But that tension’s still in his shoulders, like he’s waiting for a blow, and Jim wants to reach out and try to smooth it away. And he can’t. He...

“Look, I’ll" - he's hesitating, and _why_ , it shouldn't be so hard to turn around and leave - "find somewhere to lay low. Send you a message when I’ve got a secure line.” Jim turns for the door. Pauses.

He feels every inch of the space between them like a wound. His fingers ache and he has to fight to keep them still; his lips tingle. He remembers the feel of Adam’s hair under his hands. He remembers the heat of Adam’s mouth.

Behind him he can hear Adam breathing, carefully quiet but just a little unsteady. He can hear everything. He thinks it’s been years since he’s had this kind of desperate hyperawareness, this _need_ , the way everything in him’s tilting towards Adam so much he can almost feel those elegant black-and-gold hands on his skin.

Ahead of him’s watching his career go down the drain, and any trust in protocol he had with it. It’s the slow chipping away of him he’s been watching since he accepted this damn job. It’s paperwork and grey days in an office until one of them finally kills him.

Behind him is the man who saved his life, who looks at him like he’s someone _worth_ saving, and some kind of honesty. More than that: behind him, there’s Adam _._ Not the kind of man you meet every day.

Adam probably takes the hesitation the wrong way. Inhales. “I’m sorry. For before.“

Jim’s throat goes dry. “No. Don’t do that.”

“What the hell else am I meant to do?” Adam snaps. “You’re my boss and I goddamn jumped you.”

Jim looks over his shoulder. Adam stares levelly back, jaw working. Adam might look pissed-off, but his eyes are dismal, terrified.

Jim’s fingers twitch at his side, clench. He swallows. He crosses the kitchen and watches Adam’s eyes widen. Then he answers, “This,” and presses his mouth to Adam’s.

Adam makes the smallest, startled noise. Jim just kisses him harder, and then there’s an augmented hand at the back of Jim’s neck, pulling him close.

It’s not a gentle thing. It’s claiming, blunt, an answer to the question. Jim kisses him deep and dirty, with a year of fury and pent-up longing and a plea of his own – _please,_ _please_ _don’t change your mind -_ and Adam opens up and takes it. There’s the sharp nip of teeth against Jim’s bottom lip, and Adam’s tongue strokes against his, Adam’s hand clenching in his hair.

They break apart and stare at each other, panting.

Jim only manages a glance at Adam - breathless and red-lipped, eyes nearly black - before he has to kiss him again. Adam inhales like he expected Jim to stop or to walk out, and then he responds. It’s as intense and earnest as he is about everything, when the shades are down.

Adam’s lips are softer, fuller than they looked when they were in a tight line, when Adam was glaring at him from across a desk. Adam’s warm and human against him, breathing ragged, mouth hot against his, and he suddenly wonders how anyone could’ve ever joked about Adam being a robot, or not giving a shit. Jim dips his head to mouth below Adam’s beard. Adam tilts his head and goes with it. It’s as easy as in the field, the way Adam reads him. He leaves a trail of kisses and the scrape of teeth, needing to do more, feel more…

Adam pulls him back up until their mouths meet. This time it’s softer, soothing the sting, and he leans into it, Adam warm and strong against him. He knows they’re moving, but he doesn’t feel the need to think about it much; everything feels too damn good. He’s not sure he can think about anything except the man against him, strong and solid and the best thing he’s felt in years.

Still, eventually he looks aside and takes a second to wonder when the hell Adam ended up sitting on the kitchen island. Or how he ended up between Adam’s legs. “Quiksilver?” he manages, in a voice like gravel.

Adam grins, shakes his head the slightest bit. “You were a little out of it.”

Jim tries not to stare, and wonders how the fuck he’s never seen Adam looking this happy before. He wonders how much of the anger and strain was because of him. Christ, Adam deserves better.

Adam searches his face, sobering. “You all right?” His eyes stray to Jim’s mouth, head tilting, before he pulls himself back. It’s brief, but the darkness in his eyes... Jim feels it like a touch.

He never thought – He’d resigned himself to not having stuff like this. Safer that way. He tries to put it into words when his head’s still swimming. “You… _Me?_ _Why?_ Was it...” He swallows, and the question comes out blunter than he meant it. “Is it just because I don’t give you shit for the augs?”

Adam raises a brow, that _for fuck’s sake_ face Jim’s used to seeing on the other side of a desk, with shades firmly in place. It tells him he’s just asked a deeply stupid question. “You think I do this with everyone?”

Jim ducks his head. “No, I just… Fuck, you _know_ what I’m trying to say.”

Adam smiles briefly, eyes warm. For a second there’s something fond in it, like they’ve known each other a long time. Something comfortable. “Yeah, and it’s not the augs. And yeah. You.”

Adam doesn’t give him time to think about it, just pulls him in and kisses him again. Jim feels something slide through his hair... Adam’s fingers. Adam’s cradling his face, swaying forward like Jim’s given him a benediction. Jim’s hip bumps something; he realises what it is, and wraps his hand around a polycarbon knee. His hand creeps upward, slowly, until it’s on a firm thigh. He runs it up those standard-issue combats, fingers tightening past the crinkle of canvas until he feels warm muscle – no, myomer - tensing underneath as Adam opens his legs. His hand keeps going, exploratory, and then they both move; Adam’s hips shift, and suddenly Jim’s palming Adam through the canvas.

Adam groans against Jim’s mouth, shivering.

Jim draws back just a hair. “Too much?”

There’s that wryness in Adam’s face again. “More, uh, the opposite,” he says, in a voice like gravel, and presses his face into Jim’s neck.

Jim inhales at the feel of beard on his skin. God, been a long time since anyone… He wonders how the hell he got here: how the man who stands aside in briefings like a skittish cat and acts carefully cold could offer him something like unconditional trust, or how that man ended up plastered to him, kissing his jaw, beard rubbing against his neck. For a moment he just notes the heat and solidity of Adam against him, the brush of Adam’s eyelashes against his cheeks. No shades. No brusqueness and careful stepping back. Adam’s strong and human and so damn _warm_ , breathing raggedly, hard against his hand...

Jim’s distracted by Adam grabbing his arse to pull him forward. He goes with it, and Adam’s hand drifts upwards, slipping under his shirt. Adam’s fingers spread across his back. There’s something softer than he expected there – must be how Adam gets a grip – and that smooth warmth again. Adam’s hand traces up his spine with that silent curiosity again, and he inhales, head tilting back. He’s watched Adam punch through walls and bend metal with those hands and that easy strength, but he never imagined they could be… oddly tender.

He wants to feel those hands all over him. The force of the realisation both terrifies him and makes him hard enough he can barely breathe. Makes him move his fingers and cup Adam like he means it.

Adam’s hips buck, the slightest grind against his hand. Adam cuts it off, stills himself like he’s trying to hide it, but it’s enough - Jim finally has to step back a little, unbutton Adam’s flies and slip a hand inside.

He raises an eyebrow at the lack of underwear.

Adam meets his eye briefly, with definite colour in those pale cheeks, and mutters, “Didn’t exactly… expect this.”

Adam makes a soft, gritted-teeth little noise the moment skin touches skin. He’s hot and getting hard enough it has to hurt, and Jim suddenly wonders how long it’s been for him. Another sound, and at the sudden absence of Adam’s hands, Jim looks up.

Those hands clench against the counter as Adam tries to keep still, knuckles shining gold as they tighten. Against Jim’s fingers, his cock’s twitching and hardening even more; Adam grits his teeth, eyes slipping shut, lashes fluttering. He’s a coiled spring, all that terrifying strength held on a precipice.

And Jim remembers the desperation of before, how it felt when Adam finally let himself go. How fucking good it was.

Jim turns his head. “Come on,” he says into Adam’s ear, scraping his teeth lightly against Adam’s neck and then soothing it with a kiss. He swipes his thumb through the dampness to gather a little and then gives Adam a long, ruthless stroke.

“ _Fuck.”_ Adam makes a cut-off, basement-low sound, and… tilts. Swiftly catches himself.

It’s the closest Jim’s ever seen to him losing his balance short of an EMP. Jim pulls away and looks him over, trying not to let the surprise show -

Adam grimaces. “Goddamn fruit bowl.” He pulls it back onto the counter, just in time.

Shit.

Jim remembers where they are, and doesn’t miss Adam’s amusement at the fact it took him a second.

And all right, he’s snorting before he can help himself. Maybe at the absurdity of this entire fucking situation, but God, he doesn’t want it to end. Not now he’s had a taste. “Fucking hell.” He laughs under his breath, and Adam glances at him in surprise, and then with the hint of a smile.

Adam pulls him back into a kiss that’s brief but deep, and then says, “Bedroom?”

“I… yeah.” He sways forward, and somehow his forehead ends up against Adam’s. “Christ, what’re you doing to me?”

There’s something low and dark in Adam’s response. “Could ask you the same.”

Adam leads him through that moody, expensive apartment until they’re in a moody, expensive bedroom, and then...

He’s always liked it in a partner – never admitted it – but Adam kisses him more than any other man he’s been with. Adam kisses like it’s urgent, but like he’s enjoying it on its own, coming back for more again and again. Jim’s had so little time to take it slow – it was rushed things, grabbing moments of privacy between looking after the kids or work, and then it was… not like this. Here, he’s someone different. Or more himself than he’s been in years. Beneath the incredulous lust is something brighter, lighter. God, he wants it all.

And Jim catches Adam’s brief easy smiles, too. Adam gives him another, stepping easily out of the tacboots and flexing metal toes. Then Adam sobers, and suddenly he’s turning away. Jim almost asks him what’s wrong, but then Adam shucks his shirt and kicks aside the combats. He breathes out, softly, and Jim watches the muscles of his back move with it. Stares at shining augs and scar tissue.

He’s still lean, pale, but he’s bigger, here. Not minimising himself so much. Jim can see how it’d be intimidating, but he’s… The glimpse Jim had, the three-AM fantasies, they didn't do Adam justice.

Adam glances over his shoulder and says, obviously misinterpreting Jim's silence, “Sorry. Been a while.” There’s something more to it, and he’s trying to hide shame in the set of his shoulders. Jim knows that one well enough, even if the shoulders are metal and polymer.

Jim snorts. “Yeah. Same.”

Then Adam turns and the shame’s gone, or at least hidden better. And he’s… Christ.

Jim steps forward with a stupid amount of haste, fingers itching to… He’s got his hands on Adam’s chest before he can even think it through, and he kisses at Adam’s neck where flesh meets augs, hands trailing over Adam’s nipples and down the hard muscle of his stomach. He hears Adam’s sharp, startled breath, and the slightest cut-off moan.

Adam leans back a little, looks at him in surprise.

Jim says by way of explanation, “You’re… _Fuck,_ _Adam_ _._ ” Then he’s kissing Adam deep and dirty, pressing himself against him. He hears Adam make a deep, approving noise, and realises that Adam can feel how hard he is. That should probably embarrass him, not get him more worked-up. He breaks away and breathes, “Gorgeous,” like that’ll sum it up. Like that’s enough.

Adam grins, arousal eclipsed for a second by surprised warmth. "Huh.” Then he looks Jim over, dark and hungry - it shivers up Jim's spine - and says, smoke-rough, "I'm not exactly complaining myself." He still sounds like he can’t work out how they got here.

Jim knows the feeling. God, he wants… everything. Fuck, it’s been too long since he’s done this, especially with someone new. Especially with someone he wants badly enough it might kill him. It’s not as bad as being a teenager, but his heart’s in his ears and he wants his skin against Adam’s. He kicks off his shoes and throws aside his socks with a stupid amount of haste. He’s about to start on his clothes when he gets distracted by the expanse of skin and muscle in front of him, the way Adam’s chest is heaving. He shifts to mouth at Adam’s collarbones, the hollow of his throat – He suspected, but if he’d known what was under the trenchcoat he’d never have survived.

Adam’s hands tug impatiently on his shirt, and he looks up. He starts to take it off, but then Adam’s hands are on top of his, stopping them.

He gives Adam a questioning look. Adam just raises an eyebrow and then divests him of the shirt in under a second like it’s nothing, working on his jeans so fast it might as well be a blur. He hears a button ping against the wall and groans low in his throat. Adam… pauses, distracted.

Adam’s eyes flicker up to his then go back to his body, trying to take everything in, those elegant hands running over his skin, returning to map the breadth of his shoulders.

Been a while since he’s thought of his body as anything but a blunt force instrument. Sure, he tries to keep strong, but right now he’s the weakest he’s ever been. He sees Adam briefly pick out old scars, newer ones, almost seeming like he’s measuring them between forefinger and thumb lightning-quick before moving on. He swallows; not everyone has a Sentinel. Everyone acts like augs are strange, but maybe to Adam, he looks weak, inefficient.

He suddenly feels self-consciousness creeping up on him. It’s too obvious how weak he is for Adam, how much he wants this. He must be laying himself out on a fucking platter -

That noise of surprised approval.

His eyes snap to Adam’s. They’re dark, flickering, focusing on the rest of him. They linger on where the denim’s struggling to contain Jim’s erection, and the bastard _licks his lips._ Then Adam looks up to watch him, eyes boring into his, and quietly, inexorably backs him up. Jim’s back has barely hit the wall when Adam’s grabbing for his jeans again. Adam moves so fast he’s a blur, dropping to his knees and working on the denim. Jim lifts his feet and lets Adam divest him of the last of his clothes.

Adam traces briefly, curiously over the longest scar near Jim’s hip, old and pale, from getting grazed pretty brutally with a sniper’s bullet back in Adelaide. Adam brushes his mouth against Jim’s leg, rubbing his beard against Jim’s thigh almost affectionately - and then one of those sleek black hands reaches for Jim’s cock.

Jim squeezes Adam’s shoulder, gently, and pulls him back. A request, not an order. No orders, not here and especially not now.

Adam looks up, eyes questioning, but it’s curious rather than frustrated.

“Just let me...” Jim starts, and catches Adam’s hand to pull him to his feet. He squeezes Adam’s hand just slightly, raises it to his lips and presses a kiss to where Adam’s pulse would be. Instead there’s a low electrical thrum. And -

_Oh._

Adam tenses and then makes the smallest sound in the back of his throat, cuts it off hastily. And Jim knew rationally that most Sarif augs have full sensory input, but that - the surprised _oh God, yes_  that crosses Adam’s face - both confirms it and goes straight to his cock, makes him shiver in empathy. Fuck, he thought he couldn’t get any more desperate.

And then Jim notices. “Is that the engineering, or is it you?”

Adam frowns.

Jim raises Adam’s hand. “You’re shaking.”

That brief, caught-out look again. Adam looks down. “That’s, uh. They’re precise as hell when they need to be, but… I don’t always… Pretty strong muscle memory. They say it’s probably psychosomatic.” He swallows. “It’s both."

“Right.”

“What are you - ?”

Jim’s never been good at putting it into words. He tries, but they never do it justice. He’s had a man or two tell him he’s only honest in bed.

Jim kisses a fingertip, mouths at the silicone softness of Adam’s palm, and listens to Adam’s breathing pick up. Shifts to kiss the inside of Adam’s elbow, and listens to the _whirr_ as Adam tenses and relaxes, the softest halting inhale. “So, uh… the bed,” he says.

Adam opens his mouth. Closes it again. Then he kisses Jim, hard, before backing up. When he lies down on the sheets, he pulls Jim with him until they’re a tangle of limbs, nat-pale and sleek polymer. He feels Adam’s arms wrap around him, fingers drumming down his sides and settling on his back, and then there’s a wild-haired aug grinning wolfishly at him and one of them moves and – _oh._

Self-consciousness and memory go out the window. Fuck. He’d forgotten it felt like this.

It’s easy, too easy, to end up grinding against each other. It should probably bother him, the lack of natural skin around Adam’s hips, his thighs – instead it just makes him think _Adam_ and nose into Adam’s neck as they pant against each other’s skin. There’s that give, that friction… Jesus, he’s never going to be able to look at Adam’s legs in combats again. He’s close, feels it creeping up on him… _Fuck_ that’s good.

He drags in a breath and tries to remember what he wanted to do. Oh. Yeah. He remembers the way Adam looked just at a kiss to his fingers, and God, he wants to see everything else.

He shifts to mouth at the skin over Adam’s heart. Then he turns his head, watching his hand move over scar tissue. He strokes his thumb over the… connectors, they must be, of Adam’s arm while he gets his mouth around one of those tight dark nipples.

Adam shivers with a low, surprised rumble in his chest. Jim grins and goes for the other one too, then he leaves open-mouthed, trailing kisses down Adam’s stomach, down the scratchier trail of hair...

Adam shifts up a little on his elbows. “Wait, don’t you want – _Ah!”_ He makes a startled, strangled noise and falls back, head tilting.

Jim realises he’s sucking cock like a man starved, but it’s been a long time since he’s done this, and _fuck_ , he’s missed it. He thinks he’s lost the art of deepthroating, but they’re both so far gone he doesn’t think it matters. He’s not sure _anything_ matters.

Then something tugs at his muscle memory, and he gets it. He swallows Adam down, and the noise he gets for it…

Adam sounds like the pleasure’s been torn out of him and he never, ever expected it to be this good. His thighs twitch desperately, like it’s taking all his auged-up strength for him not to lose it and fuck into Jim’s mouth. He makes a hoarse, pleading little noise, hands spasming against the sheets before he gropes for Jim’s face and cups his cheek, his jaw, eyes bright on Jim’s. Those sleek fingers slide to Jim’s throat to feel, slow and with the same disbelieving pleasure as there is in his expression.

Jim loses the fight not to grind into the mattress. Just this and Adam’s desperate pleasure are almost getting him off, and God, yeah, it’s been far too long. He takes Adam’s hand and puts it firmly in his hair, groans around Adam’s cock when there’s the slightest whirr of servos and he feels Adam’s fingers tighten just a little. He draws back and then takes some of Adam in again. At that Adam makes a noise like he’s just been punched, fingers twitching, and then his eyes close, his head falling back again. He looks like he’s in prayer.

“Too good at this,” Adam says, through gritted teeth, and Jim would grin at that if he didn’t have his mouth full. Then Adam’s hand is gone. Jim makes a soft sound of protest. _“_ _Jim_ _,”_ Adam says, roughly, and stretches to press into his hand… a bottle of lube.

Jim pulls off with a kiss to the head, to Adam’s thigh, and looks up properly.

Adam’s just staring at him, eyes ink-dark, just the smallest thread of gold in them. “Jesus, you’re...” His thumb strokes over Jim’s mouth, swiping up the dampness, and his thighs tremble, shining in the half-dark.

Jim brushes his lips against Adam’s thumb, briefly sucks the tip of it into his mouth just for Adam’s silent shudder and the way Adam’s cock twitches. He feels it like a touch. It’s a relief to know that, for all the pain, his body still remembers how to do this. Then he turns his head and examines the bottle. “Use this often?” His voice is wrecked; he sounds like… well, like he’s just had a dick in his mouth.

Adam swallows, eyes dark on his. “Sometimes.”

Jim uncaps the bottle, and wonders… He shouldn’t ask. “Think of anything in particular?”

Adam opens his mouth. Closes it again. Something caught-out flickers across his face, and his eyes skitter away before they meet Jim’s again: slowly, pointedly. There’s pink in his cheeks, under the beard and the pallor.

“Oh,” Jim manages.

That flush crawls across Adam’s cheeks, and Jim watches it in fascination. He wonders how this is the put-together, uptight agent he sees in his office, and then realises…. he likes this man a lot better. And the image of Adam coming home from a long mission and thinking of him, and… _Fuck_.

Jim swallows. Tries to put words together, even though he’s so hard he can feel his pulse in his cock and he thinks Adam might kill him. “What’d you think of me doing?”

Adam looks at the ceiling, and there’s a repressed eyeroll in there somewhere. Stubborn. Now that’s the man Jim knows. “Few things.”

“Like?”

Adam swallows, and Jim watches his throat work in fascination. At Adam’s silence, Jim runs his free hand up Adam’s leg and feels artificial muscle flex, stopping just short of Adam’s cock. Adam makes the smallest, frustrated noise.

Jim strokes a thumb over the inside of Adam’s leg, the tucked-away half-hidden paleness where myomer turns back to skin. Then he speaks, and it should be casual, but it’s dark, deep. “I dreamt of you.”

Adam looks sharply down at him, eyes widening.

Now it’s Jim’s turn to struggle past a suddenly dry throat. His heart’s pounding in his ears, and suddenly the desperation of desire, how hard he is and how he can’t seem to stop touching Adam… it’s all further away. “Pretty often, after the Orchid. I was on… a lot of painkillers. Had some pretty weird dreams. And you’d just saved my life.”

Adam’s eyes are dark, curious. “Did you dream of this?”

“Yeah. A few other things, too.” He feels the heat in his own cheeks, but sees the surprised, intent darkness of Adam’s stare and can’t bring himself to care. He licks his lips, and Adam watches the movement. “Showed you mine. Show me yours?”

Adam opens his mouth. Closes it again. Opens it. “I, uh. Thought about you fucking me.”

Jim forgets to breathe for a second. Then he recovers himself. “I can do that.”

“Jim, I… Now?” Adam’s trying to hide it, but his face is all surprised hope.

“God yeah.” Jim has to cap the lube and puts it aside a second. “Gimme a pillow.”

Adam raises a brow.

Jim realises his voice is deep, rough. He sounds like someone else; someone he hasn’t been in years. “I want to look at you. If you want that.” He runs his hands down the outside of Adam’s thighs, and marvels that they’re as warm and sleek as Adam’s arms. Keeps exploring, hooks his hand under Adam’s knee and feels Adam go with it, lifting his leg slightly. “Christ, I want to do nothing else _but_ look at you.”

Adam makes the slightest surprised sound, and for a second something devastated, so bright it looks like it hurts, crosses his face. Then it’s gone, and he covers it with a snort. “Just look, huh?”

“Maybe more than that.”

Turns out they don’t need the pillow. Goddamn augmented flexibility. Adam probably doesn’t even get tired.

Jim loses track of himself, sometime while stroking Adam’s cock, while slicking Adam up. There’s no job and no world going to hell outside; there’s just the man underneath him making soft, pleading noises and pushing back onto his hand.

“You all right?” he asks, when he can think again.

Adam laughs under his breath. Moans just a little at the feeling. His head _thunks_ back against the pillow. “Yeah. Just… like I said, been a while. Nearly forgotten how someone else… _Ah, God._ ”

Adam acts like no-one’s touched him in years, and suddenly Jim wonders yet again if that’s true. If it is, it’s a fucking tragedy. The thought bothers him, so he tries not to think it and focuses on now instead. 

Adam stares at him for a second, eyes widening like he’s trying to sear the memory into his brain. Then he pants, “C’mon.” Grabs Jim’s hand, too fast to be human. “ _Please.”_

Jim scrabbles to lube himself up, hands shaking and heart pounding, and then there’s a shift under him and Adam’s sitting up like it’s nothing. Metal hands join his and steady them, working faster, shining against his skin, trembling but precise. It feels… He glances up, into those bright eyes, and then he’s being kissed, deep and desperate. “Adam...” he breathes.

Adam tilts his head and says, breathless, “I’d ask about condoms, but I can’t catch anything.” He glances downward, sheepish. It shouldn’t be endearing. “Sheets are screwed anyway. Unless you want...”

Jim just shakes his head and kisses Adam, hard, needing to feel more of him. Needing all of it. He feels those smooth hands come to rest on his shoulders. He pauses. Adam just looks at him, dark-eyed, and then pulls him back down before getting a hand on his cock. Fuck, he’s not used to someone who can manhandle him, and that shouldn't send such a thrill through him.

This isn’t going to last long. They both knew it, but the second he’s finally sinking into Adam, he has to fight every instinct he’s got not to get lost in it. Adam’s tight and hot and perfect, strength and steel around him, cursing filthy and gravel-deep, and he wonders how the hell he lived for years without doing this. How he lived at all. He thinks he suddenly understands how it must feel to jump out of a VTOL without a parachute. There should be fear, this should feel like a mistake, but instead there’s just his heart pounding in his ears, and the feel of it, and something like exhilaration. The ground’s dropping out from underneath him, and he looks for those green-gold eyes. He doesn’t know whether that’s an anchor or just pulling him further under.

When he starts to move and Adam grabs his back to pull him closer, he knows. Because he feels Adam's fingers curl, hears the barely-there noises of Adam’s muscles tensing, and then they hesitate. Even in the middle of this, even as Adam breathes obscenities, those fingers are slipping away. And suddenly, with a force that scares him, he wishes Adam would leave bruises. He doesn’t want this to be a dream, gone in the morning. “Not gonna break me,” he pants.

Adam’s voice is pained. “Yeah. I will.”

“I trust you.” He looks up and sees the doubt on Adam’s face. “Trust you with my life.”

His rhythm stutters when Adam shifts to kiss him, then, messy and desperate and awkward. They end up more panting into each other’s mouths than anything, but he knows what Adam isn’t saying. He knows _thank you._

He angles his thrusts just right and feels the moment Adam stops being afraid, or at least puts it aside long enough to stop overthinking and _feel_. Adam gives a cut-off groan and tightens around him. Adam’s mouth falls open, sharp and startled, and then he grits his teeth, trembling with the force of it, the tendons next to those black cords standing out starkly. If he was responsive before, this is… He tries to bite down on the noises and fails, meeting Jim thrust for thrust, stealing glances at him all the while like he’s not sure he’s allowed this much pleasure. Or like he wants to sear this into his mind while he's got it. Adam doesn't ask for anything else, doesn't even get a hand on himself, just clenches and breathlessly urges him on like this is all he's ever wanted, like he just needs Jim's skin against his and Jim inside him. Like he can barely hold on.

They lose it fast, after that. It’s too good, better than any of the fantasies, some fucked-up part of him almost wants to thank the Orchid if it got him this, and it feels like they’ve been waiting forever -

Adam's shaking and taut, so close to the edge it has to be painful, and Jim never imagined it could be this good, watching the tensing of muscle and all that careful control going out of the window. Adam’s hands dig into Jim’s skin and Jim goes faster, harder. He hears Adam saying something and he realises, with a jolt that goes straight to his cock, that it’s his name, panted and smoke-rough like Adam’s pleading, or like it’s a prayer.

That gets him. Everything in him twists, shatters. “Fuck, _Adam - “_ He falls over the edge, vision whiting out. Somewhere in the midst of it, he feels Adam touch his face, hand cupping his cheek, steadying him. Like he needs grounding.

He tries to find his mind again, trembling and still with everything in him lit-up, to finish Adam off.  He barely has to get his hand around Adam’s cock and give a few strokes before Adam’s coming all over them both, cursing filthily and gasping and grabbing Jim’s free hand tight. Black and gold shines against the whiteness of Jim’s knuckles, laces tighter, and he realises that he could never have had this with anyone else. The thought hits him and stays, almost revs him up again even as it scares him.

He breathes and then pulls out, rubbing Adam's arm at the soft sound it gets him. He rolls aside and raises his head.

The Adam he knows has always been sharp-eyed, held-back, waiting to be hurt. Here… Jim almost doesn’t recognise him, but he _does._ Adam’s still breathless, flushed and with that precisely styled hair flopping into his face, covered in sweat and come. Like some aug fetish porno, the kind Jim never got the appeal of, but… Adam’s something else. His expression’s surprised contentment, eyes closed, chest heaving. His eyes blink open, and from the way he looks at Jim - dark and surprised, eyes tracking over him approvingly and lingering - Jim realises he can’t be much different.

He suddenly remembers Adam’s hand on his cheek, startlingly gentle. As his mind comes back to him, he wonders again if this is who Adam was, before the shades and the hiding. He waits for the embarrassment to come, or the cold dread, but... it doesn’t. Not under the intent, pleased way Adam watches him. The pain of the past few months... it's all far away.

He gives up on thinking, then; it’s too much work, everything’s hazy and comfortable and _Adam._ He sprawls out next to Adam, their shoulders touching, sweaty skin against warm, almost imperceptibly thrumming myomer. They breathe and stare at the ceiling and don’t seem to think about moving. Not yet.

“Shit,” Adam says, very quietly. It’s got a finality about it.

“Yeah,” is all Jim responds. It comes out blithe and tired. “Regretting this yet?”

Adam looks at him. “Are you?”

Jim rolls onto his side and looks into Adam’s eyes, golder in the low light. Jim says, “I should. But I don’t think I can regret...” He gestures between them. Tries to wave it all off, too, but the honesty takes hold of his tongue and he can’t help it. “I don’t think I can regret you,” he says, rough and quiet.

Adam swallows. “Huh.”

The fear sets in, then. Shame’s close on its heels. Not here yet, but close. “I can go...” Jim starts to move, and then there’s a hand on his arm, pulling him back. He rolls back over, and sighs. “I won’t blame you. It’s not like you should want a washed up divorcee who can barely hold down the job.”

“What, and you think it’s easy being with an aug, in _Prague_? Being with… this?” Adam looks down and waves a hand at himself, and the exhausted despair in his eyes -

Jim catches that hand. “It’d be worth it.”

Adam’s head snaps up, and Adam just _stares_ at him. There’s the smallest furrow between his eyebrows, like this has never happened to him before and he’s got no idea what to do with it.

Jim lets go of Adam’s fingers, hand straying to Adam’s chest. He looks at that, because he’s not sure he can manage seeing Adam’s face. Part of him thinks this feels too intimate for a first time, that maybe he’s too used to a marriage – but Adam just leans into it, skin unexpectedly soft under his fingers. “I fucked up, when you came here. I should’ve listened. I should’ve listened… a lot more.” His fingers spread above that thudding mechanical heartbeat. “I should’ve known you.”

“Jim...” Adam swallows.

“This isn’t because you saved my life.”

Adam’s eyebrows raise.

Jim says bluntly, “That’d be easier to explain. This is… I’ve got no bloody idea what this is. More than that.”

Adam’s mouth twitches. “Hm. Didn’t think it was.” His smile grows a little. “You know, I have a pretty good shower.”

Jim looks at the state they’re in. “Thank Christ.”

Adam’s surprised snort of laughter sounds a lot like relief. It makes Jim lean in and kiss him, just to feel it.

In the end, after towelling themselves off, they end up throwing the comforter aside to sprawl exhaustedly on the undersheet. Jim wondered if he’d be cold, but when a tall, warm aug wraps around him, he abruptly realises that won’t be a problem. He drifts to sleep on the confused thought that _of course Adam’s a cuddler._

 

 

 

 

 

He wakes colder, alone and in an unfamiliar room. Almost goes for his pistol by instinct – and then he remembers. And he realises that someone’s thrown a clean sheet over him. Tucked it a little. He rubs at his eyes, stretches, and realises that he has a few unfamiliar aches. And unlike the Orchid, or wear and tear, these are… oh.

He remembers last night. God, he actually…

He remembers Adam under him, around him. Adam sliding into the shower with him afterwards, with the slightest of smiles.

It should feel like one of the worst mistakes he’s ever made. Instead, he’s just… it felt like relief. It felt bloody good at the time.

But he’s got no idea if Adam agrees. From the fact this bed is empty, probably not.

He squints around, and sees a bedside alarm clock. Here he figured Adam wouldn’t need one, with the HUD, but... old human habit, probably. That makes something warmer, sadder rise in his chest, and he can’t afford to examine it too closely. He shoves it aside and gets moving, because _7.15. Shit._

He sits up to try and distract himself, and – He frowns. Touches the dark mark of a hickey, closer to his chest than his neck. The hint of beard burn on his chest, his thighs. Easily coverable, but definitely there.

He wanted Adam to leave marks. He guesses Adam noticed. He’s not the kind to blush, but he feels definite heat in his face at that. Christ, he agreed to work for the Collective. And then… he fucked _Jensen._ He’s sitting in _Jensen’_ s bloody big bed, after spending the night, and he’s thinking of the rough, startled noise Adam made when he came. And Jensen – pissed-off, arrogant Jensen who only speaks sarcasm and accused him of being a stooge – tucked a blanket round him and left him to sleep.

Or just left in general. He thinks of what he said last night. It’d make sense. He probably said too much and royally fucked this up.

He’s rusty and he’s damaged goods, he knows that. There’s a reason he hasn’t tried this stuff again. He focused on the work because it was what he was good at. The personal stuff… He’s a fuckup. Runs in the family. Miller men have always been that way. Punching something’s easier than actually being a functioning human being.

He grits his teeth, shoves the sheet aside and hunts for his clothes. He has to work at it; he tries not to notice the trail of clothing they left around the room, the black shirt tossed aside, his jeans still by the wall where Adam took them off with that hungry focus and looked at him like he was... His face burns.

He’s zipping his jeans and throwing his shirt back over his head when he walks into Adam’s kitchen-lounge... and stops.

Adam’s standing at his kitchen island, next to the barely-saved fruit-bowl, frowning at something on his personal terminal. Half-dressed, wild-haired and stubbly, with a cup of coffee halfway to his lips. He glances up at the sound of Jim’s footsteps. Looks him over – briefly but unmistakeably, dark-eyed and appraising. Then Adam smiles a little, raises the mug in his hand. “I was looking for some shittier coffee.”

“I...” Jim opens his mouth. Closes it again. Scratches at the back of his neck. “Hi.”

The smile stays, but that uncertainty is back in Adam’s eyes. “Hi.” He looks back to his keyboard, probably because it’s easier than slipping on the shades. He looks back up, tilts his head. “Door’s that way, if you want it. Or I could start another pot.” That careful, brittle casualness again. Jim recognises it, now; what he thought was arrogance was actually something else entirely. It was fear.

“Yeah, that’d be nice.”

It’s startling how big the difference is when Adam really, truly smiles at him. Adam shifts like water, like it’s easy. There are a few quiet, metallic sounds against the floor that Jim can’t place - and then he realises Adam’s barefoot. Adam doesn’t look like he’s bothered about putting a shirt on, either, but he’s probably heatproof to two hundred degrees or… something. And it’s not like Jim minds the view. In the daylight, the pale remnants of scar tissue round the augs are more obvious, subtle as they are. So are Adam’s long lines and the broadness he tries to hide in the office.

Maybe it’ll stop, the fascination with watching Adam forget to hide, but for now it’s new enough that he doubts so. He looks around at a signed baseball from some team, the remains of projects that he’s caught Adam fiddling with on off-days waiting for an op to start, the piles of books on all kinds of shit from guns to astronomy, and wonders how the hell Adam tucks all this away and puts on a blank face for the world. Same way he does, he supposes.

He crosses Adam’s kitchen with slow, careful steps. “You all right?”

Adam glances over his shoulder. “I didn’t expect...” Adam clears his throat, and looks like he has to steel himself before he faces Jim. “...any of this. I figured I was pretty obvious. Also figured it was career suicide, and you were… still recovering.”

Jim laughs under his breath, incredulous. “Same, to say the least. And you were about as obvious as a brick wall.” He swallows, and then he admits, roughly, “I’ve been shit-scared since you were in my kitchen. Probably since the first time I saw your eyes.”

Adam blinks, mouth falling open just slightly.

“I meant what I said last night. You’re… you’re something else.” Jim almost reaches out to Adam, then. Rests a hand on the counter instead. “You want me to go, and I’ll go. We can talk about the Collective, but - “

And then Adam’s taking his hand and wrapping his fingers around Jim’s. He watches the surprise cross Jim’s face, and says, “I’d rather you stuck around.” There’s a raw honesty to it that pins Jim to the spot.

Jim tightens his hand around Adam’s. “So... I can stop trying to sneak out the back?”

“Told you,” and Adam grins, slipping his hand from Jim’s, “you need to help me drink my shitty coffee.”

It’s not the worst pickup line he’s ever heard. Still, Jim mutters, “Is this payback for sending you to GARM?”

Adam snorts and pours out the coffee, and then things are… quiet. Comfortable. Jim can almost feel himself relaxing.

That feeling’s sneaking up on him, same as it did last night. Same as it did when Adam sat in his kitchen and smiled at him, or the first time Adam said his name. This feels… like the start of something. That should scare him. It does. But beside the fear, there’s something warmer, realer. It’s too much to consider when he hasn’t even got any caffeine in him yet.

He breaks the silence with, “I guess I’m on a few hit lists.”

Adam passes him a mug, then runs fingers through that dark bedhead. It makes Jim itch to do the same. “About that… This place is pretty well fitted out. It’s not a safehouse, but.. I could look out for you. Until you could find a place.” He looks aside, swallows. “But the Collective have plenty of other - ”

Jim cuts him off. “And if this… if _we_ go to shit?”

Adam frowns. “Then I’ll still look out for you. Not a conditional offer.” He pauses. “Figured I’d be taking the couch anyway.”

Jim’s mouth is five steps ahead of him.“Jesus Christ, you’re not wasting a king mattress.” He pulls himself back. “I’ll think about it.”

The corner of Adam’s mouth ticks up.

Jim takes a sip from the mug. Grimaces, eloquently. It's petty, but in times like this, he needs petty. “Fucking _hell.”_

Here, in a kitchen miles away from anything he thought he knew, Adam’s quiet, rough laughter feels like absolution.


End file.
